Profile Settings Reference

The engine profile is the source of truth for how runs behave: resolver timing, the IP stack, slow-server controls, response caching, and per-testcase severity. A run starts from the built-in default and applies sparse overrides on top.

How overrides are applied:

CLI: gonemaster --profile PATH (JSON or YAML), merged over the default.
Server: a process-wide profile_path, stored profiles, and per-job overrides. See server/configuration.md .

Inspect the effective profile for a run with gonemaster --dump-profile (CLI), or the recorded effective profile on a job (server).

resolver.defaults

The resolver tuning knobs. Defaults are the built-in values; ranges are the accepted bounds.

Key	Default	Unit / type (range)	CLI flag	Description
`timeout`	`5`	seconds	`--timeout`	Per-attempt query timeout.
`retry`	`2`	count (1-255)	`--retry`	Retries after the initial attempt.
`retrans`	`3`	seconds (1-255)	`--retrans`	Interval between attempts; also the effective per-attempt UDP budget when below `timeout`.
`fallback`	`true`	bool	`--fallback` / `--no-fallback`	Retry truncated UDP responses over TCP.
`igntc`	`false`	bool	-	Ignore TC; do not retry truncated responses over TCP.
`recurse`	`false`	bool	-	Set the RD bit on outbound queries.
`usevc`	`false`	bool	-	Force queries over TCP.
`parallel`	`8`	count (1-255)	`--parallel`	Concurrent resolver workers.
`unordered`	`true`	bool	`--unordered` / `--ordered`	Allow unordered result handling. For deterministic output use `false` with `parallel: 1`.
`error_cache_ttl`	`30`	seconds (0-86400)	`--error-cache-ttl`	Skip a query for this long after a network error (debounced). Capped by the per-query timeout/retry budget.
`positive_cache_ttl`	`0`	seconds (0-86400)	`--positive-cache-ttl`	Cache positive responses across runs. `0` disables.
`negative_cache_ttl`	`30`	seconds (0-86400)	`--negative-cache-ttl`	Cache negative responses across runs.
`fast_fail_timeout_count`	`3`	count (0-100)	-	Skip a nameserver/protocol after this many consecutive timeouts. `0` disables. Reacts to silence only.
`nameserver_concurrency`	`0`	count (0-256)	-	Maximum concurrent queries to one nameserver address. `0` is unlimited.
`nameserver_max_total_ms`	`0`	milliseconds (0-600000)	-	Skip a nameserver address once cumulative query time in a run exceeds this. `0` disables. Unlike fast-fail it also bounds slow-but-responding servers. See Bounding Slow Nameservers .
`debug`	`false`	bool	`--debug-queries`	Emit a per-attempt query trace (including timeouts) and the control decisions taken. No overhead when off.

Source addresses live alongside the defaults, under resolver:

Key	Default	CLI flag	Description
`resolver.source4`	`""`	`--sourceaddr4`	IPv4 source address for outbound queries.
`resolver.source6`	`""`	`--sourceaddr6`	IPv6 source address for outbound queries.

Other profile sections

These are part of the profile but configured elsewhere:

net.ipv4 / net.ipv6 - enable or disable an IP stack (CLI --no-ipv4, --no-ipv6, --ipv6).
test_levels - the severity level emitted per message tag, per module. Largely generated; see the test specifications .
test_cases_vars - per-testcase thresholds (for example SOA timer minimums).
asndb - ASN lookup backend and sources.
badkeys - badkeys blocklist path.

Example: a sparse override

Only the keys that differ from the default are needed:

{
  "resolver": {
    "defaults": {
      "nameserver_max_total_ms": 60000
    }
  }
}