---
title: "no TTL specified - using SOA MINTTL instead error"
slug: "aa-00303"
description: "This is a warning that your zone file is malformed."
tags: ["zone files", "zonefiles", "errors", "logs", "bind 9"]
updated: 2018-09-27T21:42:52Z
published: 2018-09-27T21:42:52Z
canonical: "kb.isc.org/aa-00303"
stale: true
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://kb.isc.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Why does named log the warning message "no TTL specified - using SOA MINTTL instead"?

Your zone file is illegal according to RFC1035. It must either have a line like:

```
$TTL 86400
```

at the beginning, or the first record in it must have a TTL field, like the "84600" in this example:

```
example.com. 86400 IN SOA ns hostmaster ( 1 3600 1800 1814400 3600 )
```