KEA-ADMIN(8)

📦
version 3.0.4 · 23 versions
, in fedora 43

💖 KEA-ADMIN(8) 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this is the manual page for kea-admin, and it lives in the Kea section of your man pages. it's a shell script. she manages databases. she's booked and busy. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

kea-admin — a shell script for managing Kea databases 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

kea-admin [command] [backend] [-h database_host] [-P database_port] [-u
database_username] [-p [database_password]] [-n database_name] [-d
script_directory] [-v] [-x extra_argument [-x extra_argument ...]]  [-4
| -6] [-i input_file] [-o output_file] [-y]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so kea-admin is a shell script and she is literally the database maintenance girlie. what does she do? glad you asked:

  • database initialization ✨
  • database version checking ✨
  • database schema upgrading ✨

that's the whole vibe. she's not doing your taxes, she's doing your schema. periodt.

💜 ARGUMENTS 💜

🎀 command

this tells the servers what to actually do, and ngl it can only be one of these:

  • db-init — initializes a brand new database schema. super useful when you're doing a fresh Kea install. the database gets initialized to the latest version supported by the version of the software being installed. fresh start, clean slate, main character energy.
  • db-version — reports the database backend version number. ⚠️ heads up bestie: this is not necessarily equal to the Kea version number, because every backend has its own versioning scheme. they're all doing their own thing. respect it.
  • db-upgrade — conducts a database schema upgrade. this is the one you call when you're upgrading Kea. glow-up time. 💅
  • lease-dump — dumps the contents of the lease database (for MySQL or PostgreSQL backends) into a CSV (comma-separated values) text file. 🗂️ (support for the Cassandra backend has been deprecated, rip.) the first line of the file has the column names. you can use this to switch from a database backend over to a memfile backend, and it also slaps as a diagnostic tool because it gives you the lease data in a portable form. 🧚 there are mandatory arguments you MUST use with this command: either -4 or -6 has to be specified, and either -o or --output has to be provided. no skips.
  • lease-upload — uploads leases from a CSV (comma-separated values) text file into a MySQL or a PostgreSQL lease database. the CSV file needs to be in memfile format. 🍓 mandatory args again, bestie: either -4 or -6 must be specified, and either -i or --input must be provided.
  • stats-recount — recounts lease statistics for a MySQL or PostgreSQL database. she's counting. respectfully. 😌

🌈 backend

this specifies the backend type. currently allowed backends are: memfile, mysql, and pgsql. cql has been deprecated (gone but not forgotten 🕊️).

⭐ OPTIONS ⭐

  • -h | --host hostname — specifies the hostname when connecting to a database. the default value is localhost. 🏠
  • -i | --input input_file — specifies the CSV (comma-separated values) text file with the leases to be uploaded. this one is required for lease-upload. 📥
  • -P | --port port — specifies the port when connecting to a database. if you don't specify it, whatever default value the database client chooses gets used. not our call, it's the client's. 🤷
  • -u | --user username — specifies the username when connecting to a database. the default value is keatest. 🪪
  • -p | --password password — specifies the password when connecting to a database. if you give only -p or --password, the user gets prompted for a password. if you don't specify it at all, the KEA_ADMIN_DB_PASSWORD environment variable is checked for a value and used if it exists. otherwise the default value of 1234 is used. 🔐 (yes, 1234. it said what it said.)
  • -n | --name database-name — specifies the name of the database to connect to. the default value is keatest. 📛
  • -d | --directory script-directory — specifies the override scripts directory. that script gets used during upgrades, database initialization, and possibly other operations. the default value is (prefix)/share/kea/scripts/. 📁
  • -o | --output output_file — specifies the file the lease data will be dumped to. required for lease-dump. 📤
  • -v | --version — displays the Kea version. 👑
  • -V — displays the extended Kea version. extra. extended. elevated. 💅
  • -4 — directs kea-admin to lease-dump the DHCPv4 leases. incompatible with the -6 option. 🚫
  • -6 — directs kea-admin to lease-dump the DHCPv6 leases. incompatible with the -4 option. 🚫
  • -x | --extra — specifies an extra argument to pass to the database command tool, e.g. to invoke mysql with the --ssl argument. this can be repeated to pass more than one argument. ⚠️ quotes are not preserved, and you should avoid commands containing spaces. fr fr, keep it simple.
  • -y | --yes — assume yes on overwriting temporary files. she's not gonna ask. 🫡

📚 DOCUMENTATION 📚

Kea comes with an extensive Kea Administrator Reference Manual that covers literally all aspects of running the Kea software — compilation, installation, configuration, configuration examples, and much more. Kea also features a Kea Messages Manual, which lists every possible message Kea can print, with a brief description for each of them. both documents are available in various formats (.txt, .html, .pdf) with the Kea distribution. the Kea documentation is available at https://kea.readthedocs.io. 💖

Kea source code is documented in the Kea Developer's Guide, available at https://reports.kea.isc.org/dev_guide/. 🛠️

the Kea project website is available at https://kea.isc.org. 🌐

💌 MAILING LISTS AND SUPPORT 💌

there are two public mailing lists available for the Kea project:

  • kea-users (kea-users at lists.isc.org) — intended for Kea users 🫶
  • kea-dev (kea-dev at lists.isc.org) — intended for Kea developers, prospective contributors, and other advanced users 🧠

both lists are available at https://lists.isc.org. the community provides best-effort support on both of those lists. 🫂

ISC provides professional support for Kea services. see https://www.isc.org/kea/ for details. 💼

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

kea-dhcp4(8), kea-dhcp6(8), kea-dhcp-ddns(8), kea-ctrl-agent(8), keactrl(8), perfdhcp(8), kea-netconf(8), Kea Administrator Reference Manual.

🌟 AUTHOR 🌟

Internet Systems Consortium

2019-2025, Internet Systems Consortium

and that's the whole page bestie!! you made it to the end, iconic behavior honestly 🎀

this was Kea version 3.0.4, dated Oct 05, 2026 — mwah, slay, go init a database or something 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from