named won't start: bad owner name (check-names)

If you've updated named with yum, and it refuses to start, check the log:

tail -n 2000 /var/log/messages |grep named

If you see errors that look like this:

Mar 22 10:39:06 server bash: /var/named/somędomain.com.db:23: mail.some\196\153domain.com: bad owner name (check-names)

it would imply the zone contains and internationalized domain name (IDN) and the update of named no longer allows them by default.

The proper solution is to use puny-code instead, but if you just need to get things going quickly, and you'll check the puny-code later would be to edit your /etc/named.conf, and in the options{} section, add:

check-names master ignore;
check-names slave ignore;
check-names response ignore;

so that named can start up.

As of March 2017, DirectAdmin does not fully support automatic creation of IDN names (but you can create a puny-code domain)