Think of DNS Manager as your address book for the internet. Each “zone” is a domain (or a reverse DNS block) you control here. You can add new zones, open one to edit its records, or remove zones you don’t need anymore.

Who can use this

• Root: sees and manages all zones.
• Resellers: see only zones they own.
• Users: when editing a zone, access is limited to zones linked to their own account.

What you’ll see

• DNS Zones — your domains (e.g., example.com) and reverse blocks (e.g., 10.168.192.in-addr.arpa).
• Owner (root only) — who owns the zone (root or a reseller).
• Account — which system account the zone is linked to.
• Manage — open the zone editor to add/edit DNS records.
• Actions (root) — delete the whole zone safely.

Create a new zone

1. Enter the zone name: domain.tld or a reverse zone like 10.168.192.in-addr.arpa.
2. Click Create. We’ll validate the name, generate the zone files, and wire it up for DNS service.

Heads-up: If a YAML or DB file already exists for that zone, we’ll stop you before anything is overwritten.

Delete a zone

• Click Delete on the row, confirm, and the zone is removed from DNS.
• Use with care; removing a zone immediately affects live resolution.

Editing a DNS Zone (record view)

This is the heart of DNS: records. Each row is one record (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, etc.). You can add new ones, edit existing ones in-place, or remove what you don’t need. We increment the zone’s SOA serial for you on every save.

Adding a record

1. In the Add row at the top, fill Name (e.g., www.example.com. or just www), TTL (seconds), and pick a Type.
2. Enter the required fields for that type (we show the right inputs automatically).
3. Click Add Record. We validate and update DNS right away.

Shortcut: when you type a bare label (like www) and press Tab or leave the field, we’ll add the domain suffix for you (e.g., www.example.com.).

Editing a record

• Click Edit on a row, change the values, then Save.
• We bump the SOA serial and regenerate the live zone so changes resolve immediately.
• The SOA record itself (primary NS, email, timers) is editable, but can’t be deleted.

Deleting a record

• Click Delete on the row and confirm. The record is removed and the zone is rebuilt.

Common record types (plain-English cheat sheet)

• A — IPv4 address. Example: www → 203.0.113.10.
• AAAA — IPv6 address. Example: www → 2001:db8::10.
• CNAME — alias. Example: cdn → edge.example.net. (note the trailing dot for FQDNs).
• MX — mail exchanger. Example: priority 10 dest mail.example.com..
• TXT — free text (SPF/DKIM/verification). Paste as-is; quotes are handled.
• NS — nameserver for the zone (usually already set to your defaults).
• SRV — service location (_service._proto, priority/weight/port/target).
• PTR — reverse DNS (used in reverse zones).
• CAA — which CA may issue certs for your domain.

Validation & safety

• We validate names, IPs, and required fields before applying changes.
• Every change updates the SOA serial automatically — resolvers know to refresh.
• If a change can’t be applied, you’ll see a clear error and nothing breaks.

Tips

• Use FQDNs with a trailing dot for destinations (mail.example.com.) to avoid accidental suffixing.
• For MX, lower priority = higher preference (10 beats 20).
• Reverse DNS (PTR) must be added on the owner of the reverse zone (your provider or your own reverse zone).

DNS Cluster

A DNS cluster makes your zones highly available by pushing them to one or more remote DNS-only nodes. Add a node once, and from then on your zones sync automatically. No more manual copying of zone files.

What “Enable DNS Cluster” does

• When enabled, every time a zone changes, we sync it to all configured nodes that are reachable.
• When disabled, nothing is pushed — existing zones on nodes aren’t removed or changed.

Adding a DNS node (one-time)

1. Fill in a label (e.g., ns2), IP/host, SSH port (usually 22), and the node’s root password (one-time).
2. Click Add. We’ll:
   • Create a dedicated dnscluster SSH keypair (if it doesn’t exist).
   • Install and prepare PowerDNS on the remote node (flat-file backend, safe defaults, auto-regeneration).
   • Set up key-based SSH so future syncs don’t need passwords.

Requirement: remote OS must be AlmaLinux/RHEL 9 (the installer checks and tells you what it found).

Daily use

• Sync Now — manually push all local zones to every node (handy after big imports).
• Test — probe if a node is reachable and whether PDNS is running.
• Remove — take a node out of the cluster (no remote deletion is performed).

What gets synchronized

• Every zone you manage locally gets pushed as a flat .db file to /etc/pdns/zones/ on the node.
• The node keeps an /etc/pdns/pdns.zones index up to date and reloads PDNS cleanly.

Good practices

• Run at least two DNS nodes in different locations for resilience.
• Keep cluster enabled so changes propagate automatically; use “Sync Now” after migrations as a belt-and-suspenders step.
• Monitor nodes with your usual server monitoring; PDNS should stay active on each.