PowerDNS Docker Images

This repository contains the following Docker images - pdns-mysql, pdns-pgsql, pdns-recursor and pdns-admin. Image pdns-mysql contains completely configurable PowerDNS 4.x server with mysql backend (without mysql server). Image pdns-pgsql contains completely configurable PowerDNS 4.x server with postgres backend (without postgres server). Image pdns-recursor contains completely configurable PowerDNS 5.x recursor. Image pdns-admin contains fronted (Caddy) and backend (uWSGI) for the PowerDNS Admin web app, which is written in Flask and used for managing PowerDNS servers.

The pdns-mysql, pdns-pgsql and pdns-recursor images have also the alpine tag, thanks to @PoppyPop.

All images are available on Docker Hub:

https://hub.docker.com/r/pschiffe/pdns-mysql/

https://hub.docker.com/r/pschiffe/pdns-pgsql/

https://hub.docker.com/r/pschiffe/pdns-recursor/

https://hub.docker.com/r/pschiffe/pdns-admin/

Source GitHub repository: https://github.com/pschiffe/docker-pdns

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pdns-mysql

https://hub.docker.com/r/pschiffe/pdns-mysql/

Docker image with PowerDNS 4.x server and mysql backend. Requires external mysql server. Env vars for mysql configuration:

(name=default value)

PDNS_gmysql_host=mysql
PDNS_gmysql_port=3306
PDNS_gmysql_user=root
PDNS_gmysql_password=powerdns
PDNS_gmysql_dbname=powerdns

If linked with the official mariadb image using the alias mysql, the connection can be automatically configured, eliminating the need to specify any of the above. The DB is automatically initialized if tables are missing.

The PowerDNS server is configurable via env vars. Every variable starting with PDNS_ will be inserted into /etc/pdns/pdns.conf conf file in the following way: prefix PDNS_ will be stripped away and every _ will be replaced with -. For example, from the above mysql config, PDNS_gmysql_host=mysql will became gmysql-host=mysql in /etc/pdns/pdns.conf file. This way, you can configure PowerDNS server in any way you need within a docker run command.

The SUPERMASTER_IPS env var is also supported, which can be used to configure supermasters for a slave DNS server. Docs. Multiple IP addresses separated by spaces should work.

You can find all the available settings here.

Examples

Example of a master server with the API enabled and one slave server configured:

docker run -d -p 53:53 -p 53:53/udp --name pdns-master \
  --hostname ns1.example.com --link mariadb:mysql \
  -e PDNS_primary=yes \
  -e PDNS_api=yes \
  -e PDNS_api_key=secret \
  -e PDNS_webserver=yes \
  -e PDNS_webserver_address=0.0.0.0 \
  -e PDNS_webserver_password=secret2 \
  -e PDNS_version_string=anonymous \
  -e PDNS_default_ttl=1500 \
  -e PDNS_allow_axfr_ips=172.5.0.21 \
  -e PDNS_only_notify=172.5.0.21 \
  pschiffe/pdns-mysql

Example of a slave server with a supermaster:

docker run -d -p 53:53 -p 53:53/udp --name pdns-slave \
  --hostname ns2.example.com --link mariadb:mysql \
  -e PDNS_gmysql_dbname=powerdnsslave \
  -e PDNS_secondary=yes \
  -e PDNS_autosecondary=yes \
  -e PDNS_version_string=anonymous \
  -e PDNS_disable_axfr=yes \
  -e PDNS_allow_notify_from=172.5.0.20 \
  -e SUPERMASTER_IPS=172.5.0.20 \
  pschiffe/pdns-mysql

pdns-pgsql

https://hub.docker.com/r/pschiffe/pdns-pgsql/

Docker image with PowerDNS 4.x server and postgres backend. Requires external postgres server. Env vars for pgsql configuration:

(name=default value)

PDNS_gpgsql_host=pgsql
PDNS_gpgsql_port=5432
PDNS_gpgsql_user=postgres
PDNS_gpgsql_password=powerdns
PDNS_gpgsql_dbname=powerdns

If linked with the official postgres image using the alias pgsql, the connection can be automatically configured, eliminating the need to specify any of the above. The DB is automatically initialized if tables are missing.

The PowerDNS server is configurable via env vars. Every variable starting with PDNS_ will be inserted into /etc/pdns/pdns.conf conf file in the following way: prefix PDNS_ will be stripped away and every _ will be replaced with -. For example, from the above pgsql config, PDNS_gpgsql_host=pgsql will became gpgsql-host=pgsql in /etc/pdns/pdns.conf file. This way, you can configure PowerDNS server in any way you need within a docker run command.

The SUPERMASTER_IPS env var is also supported, which can be used to configure supermasters for a slave DNS server. Docs. Multiple IP addresses separated by spaces should work.

You can find all the available settings here.

Examples

Example of a master server with the API enabled and one slave server configured:

docker run -d -p 53:53 -p 53:53/udp --name pdns-master \
  --hostname ns1.example.com --link postgres:pgsql \
  -e PDNS_primary=yes \
  -e PDNS_api=yes \
  -e PDNS_api_key=secret \
  -e PDNS_webserver=yes \
  -e PDNS_webserver_address=0.0.0.0 \
  -e PDNS_webserver_password=secret2 \
  -e PDNS_version_string=anonymous \
  -e PDNS_default_ttl=1500 \
  -e PDNS_allow_axfr_ips=172.5.0.21 \
  -e PDNS_only_notify=172.5.0.21 \
  pschiffe/pdns-pgsql

Example of a slave server with a supermaster:

docker run -d -p 53:53 -p 53:53/udp --name pdns-slave \
  --hostname ns2.example.com --link postgres:pgsql \
  -e PDNS_gpgsql_dbname=powerdnsslave \
  -e PDNS_secondary=yes \
  -e PDNS_autosecondary=yes \
  -e PDNS_version_string=anonymous \
  -e PDNS_disable_axfr=yes \
  -e PDNS_allow_notify_from=172.5.0.20 \
  -e SUPERMASTER_IPS=172.5.0.20 \
  pschiffe/pdns-pgsql

pdns-recursor

https://hub.docker.com/r/pschiffe/pdns-recursor/

Docker image with PowerDNS 5.x recursor.

PowerDNS recursor is configurable via env vars. Every variable starting with PDNS_ will be inserted into /etc/pdns/recursor.conf conf file in the following way: prefix PDNS_ will be stripped away and every _ will be replaced with -. For example, from the above mysql config, PDNS_gmysql_host=mysql will became gmysql-host=mysql in /etc/pdns/recursor.conf file. This way, you can configure PowerDNS recursor any way you need within a docker run command.

You can find all available settings here.

Example

Recursor server with API enabled:

docker run -d -p 53:53 -p 53:53/udp --name pdns-recursor \
  -e PDNS_api_key=secret \
  -e PDNS_webserver=yes \
  -e PDNS_webserver_address=0.0.0.0 \
  -e PDNS_webserver_password=secret2 \
  pschiffe/pdns-recursor

pdns-admin

https://hub.docker.com/r/pschiffe/pdns-admin/

Docker image with PowerDNS Admin web app, written in Flask, for managing PowerDNS servers. It needs external mysql or postgres server.

There is also an official image for the pdns-admin on Docker Hub. That image contains only gunicorn process that handles both - static files and the python app. Image in this repo contains uWSGI server handling requests for python app and Caddy web server handling static files and optionally HTTPS with Let's Encrypt.

Env vars for mysql configuration:

(name=default value)

PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_HOST=mysql
PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_PORT=3306
PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_USER=root
PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_PASSWORD=powerdnsadmin
PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_NAME=powerdnsadmin

If linked with official mariadb image with alias mysql, the connection can be automatically configured, so you don't need to specify any of the above.

Env vars for pgsql configuration:

PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_TYPE=postgres
PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_HOST=pgsql
PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_PORT=5432
PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_USER=postgres
PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_PASSWORD=powerdnsadmin
PDNS_ADMIN_SQLA_DB_NAME=powerdnsadmin

The DB is automatically initialized if tables are missing.

Similar to the pdns-mysql, pdns-admin is also completely configurable via env vars. Prefix in this case is PDNS_ADMIN_, configuration will be written to the /opt/powerdns-admin/powerdnsadmin/default_config.py file.

Connecting to the PowerDNS server

For the pdns-admin to make sense, it needs a PowerDNS server to manage. The PowerDNS server needs to have exposed API (example configuration for PowerDNS 4.x):

api=yes
api-key=secret
webserver=yes
webserver-address=0.0.0.0
webserver-allow-from=172.5.0.0/16

And again, PowerDNS connection is configured via env vars (it needs url of the PowerDNS server, api key and a version of PowerDNS server, for example 4.0):

(name=default value)

PDNS_API_URL="http://pdns:8081/"
PDNS_API_KEY=""
PDNS_VERSION=""

If this container is linked with pdns-mysql from this repo with alias pdns, it will be configured automatically and none of the env vars from above are needed to be specified.

PowerDNS Admin API keys and SALT

In order to be able to generate an API Key, you will need to specify the SALT via PDNS_ADMIN_SALT env var. This is a secret value, which can be generated via command:

python3 -c 'import bcrypt; print(bcrypt.gensalt().decode("utf-8"));'

Example value looks like $2b$12$xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - remember that when using docker-compose, literal $ must be specified as $$.

SSL with Let's Encrypt

Included Caddy server can optionally handle HTTPS with certificates from Let's Encrypt. To make this work, add SSL_MAIN_DOMAIN env var with your primary domain for HTTPS. The SSL_EXTRA_DOMAINS env var can contain list of comma-separated domains that will be redirected to the SSL_MAIN_DOMAIN. Public DNS must be properly configured and pdns-admin ports 8080, 8443 and 8443/udp must be exposed as 80, 443 and 443/udp (443/udp is for HTTP/3 traffic).

Finally, make the /var/lib/caddy dir inside of the pdns-admin container persistent - that's where the generated certificates will be stored.

Persistent data

There is also a directory with user uploads which should be persistent: /opt/powerdns-admin/upload

Examples

When linked with pdns-mysql from this repo:

docker run -d -p 8080:8080 --name pdns-admin \
  --link mariadb:mysql --link pdns-master:pdns \
  -v pdns-admin-upload:/opt/powerdns-admin/upload \
  pschiffe/pdns-admin

The same with HTTPS:

docker run -d -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 -p 443:8443/udp --name pdns-admin \
  --link mariadb:mysql --link pdns-master:pdns \
  -v pdns-admin-caddy:/var/lib/caddy \
  -v pdns-admin-upload:/opt/powerdns-admin/upload \
  -e SSL_MAIN_DOMAIN=www.pdns-admin.com \
  -e SSL_EXTRA_DOMAINS=pdns-admin.com,pdns-admin.eu \
  pschiffe/pdns-admin

Docker Compose

Included docker compose files contain example configuration of how to use these containers:

docker-compose -f docker-compose-mysql.yml up -d

Ansible playbook

Included ansible playbooks can be used to build and run the containers from this repo. Run it with:

ansible-playbook