Tag Archives: bind

Route53 with NamedManager 1.8.0

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Just released NamedManager 1.8.0, my open source web-based DNS management tool. This release fixes some bugs with MySQL 5.6 and internationalized domain names, but also includes support for using Amazon AWS Route53 alongside the existing Bind9 support.

Just add a name server entry with the type of Route53 and your Amazon credentials and a background process will sync all DNS changes to Route53. You can mix and match thanks to the groups feature, so if you want some zones going to both Bind9 and Route53 and others going to just Route53 or Bind9, you can do so.

NamedManager, now with cloudy goodness.

NamedManager, now with cloudy goodness.

As always, the easiest installation is from the provided RPMs, however you can also install from tarball or from Git – just refer to the installation documentation.

This feature is considered stable, however it is new, so be wary for bugs and issues – and report any issues you encounter back to me via email or the project manager issue tracker.

NamedManager 1.5.1

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I’ve pushed a new release of NamedManager version 1.5.1, this release is a minor bug fix release providing:

  1. Bug fix for handling of TXT records, where extra slashes would be entered into the record due to an input validator bug.
  2. The Bind configuration writer now runs the Bind-supplied validators for configuration and DNS zone files and refuses to reload Bind without them passing

The first change is naturally important if you’re using TXT records as it does fix a serious issue with the handling of TXT records (no security problems, but corrupted zonefiles would result at times).

Even if you’re not using TXT records, the second change is worth upgrading to as it makes the Bind configuration generator much more robust and prevents any potential future bugs from ever feeding Bind a bad zonefile.

Pre-1.5.1, we relied on Bind’s reload process to validate the files, however this suffers an issue where the error might not be reported back to the user and they would only discover the issue next time Bind restarts. This changes prevents a new zonefile from being loaded into place until the validator passes it, so the worst case is your DNS just refuses to accept changes, whilst logging loudly in the web interface back to you. :-)

If you upgrade, take advantage of this feature, by adding the following to /etc/namedmanager/config-bind.php or wherever you have installed your Bind component configuration file to:

$config["bind"]["verify_zone"]    = "/usr/sbin/named-checkzone";
$config["bind"]["verify_config"]  = "/usr/sbin/named-checkconf";

NamedManager 1.5.1 can be found at the project page or in my packaged repositories.

Presenting NamedManager

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A while ago I had a project to build a DNS management application for a client, which has since been refined and improved further, and finally released as “NamedManager” now that I’ve had time to re-do the documentation for a public audience.

NamedManager is an AGPL web-based DNS management system designed to make the adding, adjusting and removal of zones/records easy and reliable by a simple yet effective interface.

Rather than attempting to develop a new name server, NamedManager supports the tried and tested Bind name server and can integrate nicely into existing complex Bind configurations including servers with multiple views without clobbering custom configurations.

Configuring zone records with NamedManager.

Configuring zone records with NamedManager.

It’s written in PHP 5 and uses a MySQL database for storing the DNS record information, which is then converted into Bind compatible configuration files and copied to the name servers, an act which ensures that any loss of the NamedManager application or database will not result in a loss of DNS services.

It’s a stable application, having been in some large production environments for over a year, although there’s certainly more work wanted on the application, such as the addition of IPv6 PTR records and improved UI around SRV and SPF record entry.

NamedManager includes an interface for tracking the sync status of the latest changes across all your name servers, as well as understanding the differences between internal only and publicly accessible name servers and generating the appropriate NS records for domains automatically.

An included daemon can (optional) watch the Bind name server logs and send them back to the web interface, so that you can watch all your name servers via an AJAX log interface to make it easier to watch for issues or debug queries.

Server status report - see if your hosts have synced DNS changes and are reporting logs.

Server status report – see if your hosts have synced DNS changes and are reporting logs.

Both forwards domains for IPv4 and IPv6 are supported, and IPv4 reverse domains are also supported (IPv6 reverse to come in future release), along with the ability to import Bind zone files (works for most, unless yours is too ugly/complex) into the application.

View of all the domains active on this DNS cluster with NamedManager.

View of all the domains active on this DNS cluster with NamedManager.

For developers, NamedManager features a SOAP API which can be used to manage DNS records – this has been used to hook into other provisioning tools (eg: cloud instance management tools) to reduce manual effort for keeping records clean and tidy,

The code structure of NamedManager would make it possible to add support for additional name servers as desired, I would be keen to see support for PowerDNS and Amazon Route 53 as options in future – as always, patches welcome. ;-)

If you’re interested in checking it out, view the NamedManager project page here and follow the instructions to install from RPM, source tarball or SVN.