PowerDNS manual

PowerDNS BV

<pdns.bd@powerdns.com>

    It is a book about a Spanish guy called Manual. You should read it.
       -- Dilbert

Table of Contents

1. The PowerDNS dynamic nameserver

1.1. Function & design of PDNS

1.2. About this document

1.3. Release notes

1.3.1. Version 2.9.20
1.3.2. Version 2.9.19
1.3.3. Version 2.9.18
1.3.4. Version 2.9.17
1.3.5. Version 2.9.16
1.3.6. Version 2.9.15
1.3.7. Version 2.9.14
1.3.8. Version 2.9.13
1.3.9. Version 2.9.12
1.3.10. Version 2.9.11
1.3.11. Version 2.9.10
1.3.12. Version 2.9.8
1.3.13. Version 2.9.7
1.3.14. Version 2.9.6
1.3.15. Version 2.9.5
1.3.16. Version 2.9.4
1.3.17. Version 2.9.3a
1.3.18. Version 2.9.2
1.3.19. Version 2.9.1
1.3.20. Version 2.9
1.3.21. Version 2.8
1.3.22. Version 2.7 and 2.7.1
1.3.23. Version 2.6.1
1.3.24. Version 2.6
1.3.25. Version 2.5.1
1.3.26. Version 2.5
1.3.27. Version 2.4
1.3.28. Version 2.3
1.3.29. Version 2.2
1.3.30. Version 2.1
1.3.31. Version 2.0.1
1.3.32. Version 2.0
1.3.33. Version 2.0 Release Candidate 2
1.3.34. Version 2.0 Release Candidate 1
1.3.35. Version 1.99.12 Prerelease
1.3.36. Version 1.99.11 Prerelease
1.3.37. Version 1.99.10 Prerelease
1.3.38. Version 1.99.9 Early Access Prerelease
1.3.39. Version 1.99.8 Early Access Prerelease
1.3.40. Version 1.99.7 Early Access Prerelease
1.3.41. Version 1.99.6 Early Access Prerelease
1.3.42. Version 1.99.5 Early Access Prerelease
1.3.43. Version 1.99.4 Early Access Prerelease
1.3.44. Version 1.99.3 Early Access Prerelease
1.3.45. Version 1.99.2 Early Access Prerelease
1.3.46. Version 1.99.1 Early Access Prerelease

1.4. Security

1.5. Acknowledgements

2. Installing on Unix

2.1. Possible problems at this point

2.2. Testing your install

2.2.1. Typical errors

2.3. Running PDNS on unix

3. Installing on Microsoft Windows

3.1. Configuring PDNS on Microsoft Windows
3.2. Running PDNS on Microsoft Windows

4. Configure database connectivity

4.1. Configuring MySQL

4.1.1. Common problems

5. Dynamic resolution using the PipeBackend

5.1. Deploying the PipeBackend with the BindBackend

6. Logging & Monitoring PDNS performance

6.1. Webserver
6.2. Via init.d commands
6.3. Operational logging using syslog

7. Security settings & considerations

7.1. Settings

7.1.1. Running as a less privileged identity
7.1.2. Jailing the process in a chroot

7.2. Considerations

8. Virtual hosting

9. Performance

9.1. General advice

9.2. Native Posix Thread Library vs LinuxThreads

9.3. Performance related settings

9.3.1. Packet Cache

9.4. Query Cache

10. Migrating to PDNS

10.1. Zone2sql

11. Recursion

11.1. Details

12. PowerDNS resolver/recursing nameserver

12.1. pdns_recursor settings

12.1.1. Verisign weirdness

12.2. Details

12.3. Statistics

13. Master/Slave operation & replication

13.1. Native replication

13.2. Slave operation

13.2.1. Supermaster automatic provisioning of slaves

13.3. Master operation

14. Fancy records for seamless email and URL integration

15. Index of all settings

16. Index of all internal metrics

16.1. Counters & variables

16.1.1. Ring buffers

17. Supported record types and their storage

18. HOWTO & Frequently Asked Questions

18.1. Getting support, free and paid FAQ
18.2. Using and Compiling PowerDNS FAQ
18.3. Backend developer HOWTO
18.4. About PowerDNS.COM BV, 'the company'

19. Tools to analyse DNS traffic

A. Backends in detail

A.1. PipeBackend

A.1.1. PipeBackend protocol

A.2. MySQL backend

A.2.1. Configuration settings
A.2.2. Notes

A.3. Random Backend

A.4. MySQL PDNS backend

A.4.1. Notes

A.5. Generic MySQL and PgSQL backends

A.5.1. MySQL specifics
A.5.2. PostgresSQL specifics
A.5.3. Oracle specifics
A.5.4. Basic functionality
A.5.5. Master/slave queries
A.5.6. Fancy records
A.5.7. Settings and specifying queries
A.5.8. Native operation
A.5.9. Slave operation
A.5.10. Superslave operation
A.5.11. Master operation

A.6. Oracle backend

A.6.1. Setting up Oracle for use with PowerDNS

A.7. Generic SQLite backend

A.7.1. Compiling the SQLite backend
A.7.2. Setting up the database
A.7.3. Using the SQLite backend

A.8. DB2 backend

A.9. Bind zone file backend

A.9.1. Operation
A.9.2. Pdns_control commands
A.9.3. Performance
A.9.4. Master/slave configuration
A.9.5. Commands

A.10. ODBC backend

A.11. XDB Backend

A.12. LDAP backend

B. PDNS internals

B.1. Controlsocket

B.1.1. pdns_control

B.2. Guardian

B.3. Modules & Backends

B.4. How PDNS translates DNS queries into backend queries

C. Backend writers' guide

C.1. Simple read-only native backends

C.1.1. A sample minimal backend
C.1.2. Interface definition

C.2. Reporting errors

C.3. Declaring and reading configuration details

C.4. Read/write slave-capable backends

C.4.1. Supermaster/Superslave capability

C.5. Read/write master-capable backends

D. Compiling PowerDNS

D.1. Compiling PowerDNS on Unix

D.1.1. AIX
D.1.2. FreeBSD
D.1.3. Linux
D.1.4. MacOS X
D.1.5. OpenBSD
D.1.6. Solaris

D.2. Compiling PowerDNS on Windows

D.2.1. Assumptions
D.2.2. Prequisites
D.2.3. Nullsoft Installer
D.2.4. Setting up the build-environment
D.2.5. Compilation
D.2.6. Miscellaneous

E. PowerDNS license (GNU General Public License version 2)

List of Tables
17-1. SOA fields
A-1. PipeBackend capabilities
A-2. MySQL backend capabilities
A-3. Random Backend capabilities
A-4. MySQL backend capabilities
A-5. Generic PgSQL and MySQL backend capabilities
A-6. Oracle backend capabilities
A-7. Generic SQLite backend capabilities
A-8. DB2 backend capabilities
A-9. Bind zone file backend capabilities
A-10. ODBC backend capabilities
A-11. LDAP backend capabilities
C-1. DNSResourceRecord class
C-2. SOAData struct
C-3. DomainInfo struct