Posts Tagged ‘powerdns’

Switched to PowerDNS

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

I’ve now switched to PowerDNS, running on a MySQL backend, and controllable using the pretty-damn-good .

Reasons for switching:

  • I am sick and fucking tired of editing and backing up countless arcane zone files. It might be “hard core” and “old school” but it’s also annoying as hell, and I can never remember the syntax or forget something stupid like updating the serial, or whatever.
  • A database is the natural storage container for numerous data files of the same syntax and consistent references, and is far more convenient. I can take snapshots of my entire DNS setup, one file, ready to import at a moment’s notice elsewhere.
  • Furthermore, a database is amenable to controlling with a web interface, which is far more convenient (and less prone to error) than ssh’ing in and editing files manually
  • I have one less thing to back up (actually, about 30 less things)
  • BIND has a terrible security record
  • PowerDNS has some neat other features such as dynamic lookup that I am eager to start playing with.

I’ve been considering this for a while, decided to make the jump today. First I got it set up and running perfectly on an unprivileged port; then turned off BIND and turned on PowerDNS. Total downtime: under 5 seconds.

Here are the steps to install on RHEL5:

$ yum install pdns pdns-backend-mysql pdns-backend-pipe pdns-backend-sqlite
# create a mysql user & db "powerdns"
# edit /etc/pdns/pdns.conf to increase port, add gmysql backend and add db credentials
# create the dir to put powerdns-on-rails in, go to it
$ git clone git://github.com/kennethkalmer/powerdns-on-rails.git
# enter DB creds into config/database.yml and create the DB
$ rake db:migrate
$ rake db:seed
# import zone files
# note: you may need to temporarily cp them to /var/named/
$ zone2sql --named-conf=/var/named/chroot/etc/named.conf --gmysql > zones.sql
# import the sql into MySQL via whatever means customary
# start and test powerdns at this point, see the docs
# then revert the port
# add the web app in Apache or whatever you use, log in, bingo
$ service named stop
$ service pdns start
$ chkconfig named off
$ chkconfig pdns on # make sure mysqld is on too ...

There are some more tips if you want to have a look.

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Posted in lifestyle | 2 Comments »

Compiling PowerDNS on OSX 10.5.7

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Want to play with PowerDNS? On a Mac? You’ll need to do something like this. Make sure you read all the way to the end before continuing.

1. Download boost from sourceforge. The link for the version I used, 1.39.0, is here.

2. Extract the file somewhere. Mine was just in downloads.

3. Download and extract the source (at the top) of PowerDNS. I used version 2.9.22, from here.

4. navigate to the PowerDNS directory and execute the following commands. Change the reference to MySQL to something relevant to your local copy:

$ CXXFLAGS=-I/Users/sho/Downloads/boost_1_39_0 ./configure --with-mysql-includes=/usr/local/mysql-5.0.45-osx10.4-i686/include
$ make
$ sudo make install

That’s it! Built and installed perfectly. Now run pdns_server, and watch it fail with Cannot create semaphore: Function not implemented, because OSX is not fully POSIX compliant. Now wasn’t that a great way to waste time? I certainly thought so. Told you to read all the way to the end.

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Posted in lifestyle | 1 Comment »