Install PowerDNS and PowerDNS-Admin on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04

In this guide, we will cover the installation of PowerDNS Authoritative Name Server and PowerDNS-Admin on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04 flavors of Linux. PowerDNS is a DNS server, written in C++ and licensed under the GPL. It runs on most Linux and all other Unix derivatives. There are two PowerDNS nameserver products – the Authoritative Server and the Recursor. In most setups you combine the two, but PowerDNS offers them separately with an option to mix both authoritative and recursive usage seamlessly.

Install PowerDNS on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04

In this section we’re going to install and configure:

• MariaDB database server.
• PowerDNS service

Step 1: Install and Configure MariaDB Database

We need to install database server which will be used by PowerDNS to store zone files. Note that you also have an option to use text files like BIND. Our database server of choice is MariaDB.

For installation of MariaDB on Ubuntu Linux Server:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mariadb-server -y

Once the database server is installed and running, proceed to create the PowerDNS Database and User Account in MariaDB.

$ sudo mysql -u root
CREATE DATABASE powerdns;

Next is to create powerdns database user and assign privileges:

GRANT ALL ON powerdns.* TO 'powerdns'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Str0ngPasswOrd';

Flush the privileges to update the user settings:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Switch to powerdns database to create tables:

USE powerdns;

Create the required tables:

CREATE TABLE domains (
  id                    INT AUTO_INCREMENT,
  name                  VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  master                VARCHAR(128) DEFAULT NULL,
  last_check            INT DEFAULT NULL,
  type                  VARCHAR(6) NOT NULL,
  notified_serial       INT UNSIGNED DEFAULT NULL,
  account               VARCHAR(40) CHARACTER SET 'utf8' DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
) Engine=InnoDB CHARACTER SET 'latin1';

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX name_index ON domains(name);


CREATE TABLE records (
  id                    BIGINT AUTO_INCREMENT,
  domain_id             INT DEFAULT NULL,
  name                  VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  type                  VARCHAR(10) DEFAULT NULL,
  content               VARCHAR(64000) DEFAULT NULL,
  ttl                   INT DEFAULT NULL,
  prio                  INT DEFAULT NULL,
  change_date           INT DEFAULT NULL,
  disabled              TINYINT(1) DEFAULT 0,
  ordername             VARCHAR(255) BINARY DEFAULT NULL,
  auth                  TINYINT(1) DEFAULT 1,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
) Engine=InnoDB CHARACTER SET 'latin1';

CREATE INDEX nametype_index ON records(name,type);
CREATE INDEX domain_id ON records(domain_id);
CREATE INDEX ordername ON records (ordername);


CREATE TABLE supermasters (
  ip                    VARCHAR(64) NOT NULL,
  nameserver            VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  account               VARCHAR(40) CHARACTER SET 'utf8' NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (ip, nameserver)
) Engine=InnoDB CHARACTER SET 'latin1';


CREATE TABLE comments (
  id                    INT AUTO_INCREMENT,
  domain_id             INT NOT NULL,
  name                  VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  type                  VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL,
  modified_at           INT NOT NULL,
  account               VARCHAR(40) CHARACTER SET 'utf8' DEFAULT NULL,
  comment               TEXT CHARACTER SET 'utf8' NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
) Engine=InnoDB CHARACTER SET 'latin1';

CREATE INDEX comments_name_type_idx ON comments (name, type);
CREATE INDEX comments_order_idx ON comments (domain_id, modified_at);


CREATE TABLE domainmetadata (
  id                    INT AUTO_INCREMENT,
  domain_id             INT NOT NULL,
  kind                  VARCHAR(32),
  content               TEXT,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
) Engine=InnoDB CHARACTER SET 'latin1';

CREATE INDEX domainmetadata_idx ON domainmetadata (domain_id, kind);


CREATE TABLE cryptokeys (
  id                    INT AUTO_INCREMENT,
  domain_id             INT NOT NULL,
  flags                 INT NOT NULL,
  active                BOOL,
  content               TEXT,
  PRIMARY KEY(id)
) Engine=InnoDB CHARACTER SET 'latin1';

CREATE INDEX domainidindex ON cryptokeys(domain_id);


CREATE TABLE tsigkeys (
  id                    INT AUTO_INCREMENT,
  name                  VARCHAR(255),
  algorithm             VARCHAR(50),
  secret                VARCHAR(255),
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
) Engine=InnoDB CHARACTER SET 'latin1';

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX namealgoindex ON tsigkeys(name, algorithm);

You can confirm that your tables are created:

MariaDB [powerdns]> show tables;
+--------------------+
| Tables_in_powerdns |
+--------------------+
| comments           |
| cryptokeys         |
| domainmetadata     |
| domains            |
| records            |
| supermasters       |
| tsigkeys           |
+--------------------+
7 rows in set (0.000 sec)

MariaDB [powerdns]> EXIT
Bye

Now we have a database and an empty table. PowerDNS should now be able to launch with it.

Step 2: Install PowerDNS

Ubuntu comes with systemd-resolve which you need to disable since it binds to port 53 which will conflict with PowerDNS ports.

Run the following commands to disable the resolved service:

sudo systemctl disable systemd-resolved
sudo systemctl stop systemd-resolved

Also, remove the symlinked resolv.conf file

$ ls -lh /etc/resolv.conf 
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Jul 24 15:50 /etc/resolv.conf -> ../run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf
$ sudo unlink /etc/resolv.conf

Then create new resolv.conf file.

echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" | sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf

Note that you can install PowerDNS from the official apt repository or from PowerDNS repository. To install from apt repository, run:

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install pdns-server pdns-backend-mysql

Add official PowerDNS repository for Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04.

# Ubuntu 22.04
echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://repo.powerdns.com/ubuntu jammy-auth-master main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pdns.list

# Ubuntu 20.04
echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://repo.powerdns.com/ubuntu focal-auth-master main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pdns.list

# Ubuntu 18.04
echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://repo.powerdns.com/ubuntu bionic-auth-master main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pdns.list

Import GPG key:

curl -fsSL https://repo.powerdns.com/CBC8B383-pub.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/powerdns.gpg

Update package list and install PowerDNS package (pdns-server) and MySQL backend (pdns-backend-mysql).

sudo apt update
sudo apt install pdns-server pdns-backend-mysql

When asked whether to configure the PowerDNS database with dbconfig-common, answer No

Configure PowerDNS to use MySQL backend:

Here is my MySQL configuration for PowerDNS:

$ sudo vim /etc/powerdns/pdns.d/pdns.local.gmysql.conf 
# MySQL Configuration
# Launch gmysql backend
launch+=gmysql
# gmysql parameters
gmysql-host=localhost
gmysql-port=3306
gmysql-dbname=powerdns
gmysql-user=powerdns
gmysql-password=Str0ngPasswOrd
gmysql-dnssec=yes
# gmysql-socket=

Restart and enable the pdns service

sudo systemctl restart pdns
sudo systemctl enable pdns

You can now test PowerDNS to confirm that the service is online:

$ sudo apt install net-tools -y
$ sudo netstat -tap | grep pdns
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:domain          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6211/pdns_server
tcp6       0      0 [::]:domain             [::]:*                  LISTEN      6211/pdns_server   

Check if PowerDNS service is responding correctly:

$ dig @127.0.0.1

; <<>> DiG 9.16.1-Ubuntu <<>> @127.0.0.1
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: REFUSED, id: 14054
;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;.				IN	NS

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Wed Apr 28 11:04:57 UTC 2021
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 28

Install PowerDNS-Admin on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04

PowerDNS-Admin is a PowerDNS web interface with the following advanced features:

• Multiple domain management
• Domain template
• User management
• User access management based on domain
• User activity logging
• Local DB / LDAP / Active Directory user authentication
• Support SAML authentication
• Google OAuth authentication
• Github OAuth authentication
• Support Two-factor authentication (TOTP)
• Dashboard and pdns service statistics
• DynDNS 2 protocol support
• Edit IPv6 PTRs using IPv6 addresses directly (no more editing of literal addresses!)

Install Python 3 development package

sudo apt install python3-dev

Install required packages for building python libraries from requirements.txt file

sudo apt install -y libmysqlclient-dev libsasl2-dev libldap2-dev libssl-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libxmlsec1-dev libffi-dev pkg-config apt-transport-https virtualenv build-essential python3-venv

Install Node.js

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | sudo bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs

Install yarn to build asset files:

curl -fsSL https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/yarn-keyring.gpg
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y yarn

Checkout source code and create virtualenv:

sudo su -
git clone https://github.com/ngoduykhanh/PowerDNS-Admin.git /opt/web/powerdns-admin
cd /opt/web/powerdns-admin
python3 -mvenv ./venv

Activate your python3 environment and install libraries:

source ./venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

Before running PowerDNS-Admin, we need to configure database connectivity.

cp /opt/web/powerdns-admin/configs/development.py /opt/web/powerdns-admin/configs/production.py
vim /opt/web/powerdns-admin/configs/production.py

These are the required config:

• DB connection information
• PNDS API service endpoint and API key
• Port Number used
• Bind Address

Comment out SQLite SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI line and uncomment MySQL one:

### DATABASE CONFIG
SQLA_DB_USER = 'powerdns'
SQLA_DB_PASSWORD = 'Str0ngPasswOrd'
SQLA_DB_HOST = '127.0.0.1'
SQLA_DB_NAME = 'powerdns'
SQLALCHEMY_TRACK_MODIFICATIONS = True

### DATABASE - MySQL
#SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = 'sqlite:///' + os.path.join(basedir, 'pdns.db')
SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = 'mysql://'+SQLA_DB_USER+':'+SQLA_DB_PASSWORD+'@'+SQLA_DB_HOST+'/'+SQLA_DB_NAME

See below screenshot:

Once you your configuration is ready. Create the database schema by running commands:

(flask) $ export FLASK_APP=powerdnsadmin/__init__.py
(flask) $ export FLASK_CONF=../configs/production.py
(flask)$ flask db upgrade
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Context impl MySQLImpl.
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Will assume non-transactional DDL.
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade  -> 787bdba9e147, Init DB
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 787bdba9e147 -> 59729e468045, Add view column to setting table
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 59729e468045 -> 1274ed462010, Change setting.value data type
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 1274ed462010 -> 4a666113c7bb, Adding Operator Role
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 4a666113c7bb -> 31a4ed468b18, Remove all setting in the DB
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 31a4ed468b18 -> 654298797277, Upgrade DB Schema
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 654298797277 -> 0fb6d23a4863, Remove user avatar
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 0fb6d23a4863 -> 856bb94b7040, Add comment column in domain template record table
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 856bb94b7040 -> b0fea72a3f20, Update domain serial columns type
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade b0fea72a3f20 -> 3f76448bb6de, Add user.confirmed column
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 3f76448bb6de -> 0d3d93f1c2e0, Add domain_id to history table

Fixing error “ImportError: cannot import name ‘json’ from ‘itsdangerous’ ” – This is tracked on Github issues

# Only if you have error ImportError: cannot import name 'json' from 'itsdangerous'
$ pip uninstall itsdangerous
$ pip install  itsdangerous==2.0.1
$ flask db upgrade

Then run db migrate:

(flask)$ flask db migrate -m "Init DB"
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Context impl MySQLImpl.
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Will assume non-transactional DDL.
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed index 'name_index' on 'domains'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed table 'domains'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed index 'comments_name_type_idx' on 'comments'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed index 'comments_order_idx' on 'comments'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed table 'comments'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed index 'namealgoindex' on 'tsigkeys'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed table 'tsigkeys'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed index 'domainidindex' on 'cryptokeys'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed table 'cryptokeys'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed table 'supermasters'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed index 'domainmetadata_idx' on 'domainmetadata'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed table 'domainmetadata'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed index 'nametype_index' on 'records'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected removed table 'records'
INFO  [alembic.autogenerate.compare] Detected added index 'ix_history_created_on' on '['created_on']'
  Generating /opt/web/powerdns-admin/migrations/versions/57130833385e_init_db.py ...  done

Generate asset files with yarn:

(flask)$ yarn install --pure-lockfile
yarn install v1.22.17
[1/4] Resolving packages...
[2/4] Fetching packages...
[3/4] Linking dependencies...
[4/4] Building fresh packages...
Done in 15.49s.

(flask)$ flask assets build
Building bundle: generated/login.js
[2022-02-21 22:45:55,106] [script.py:167] INFO - Building bundle: generated/login.js
Building bundle: generated/validation.js
[2022-02-21 22:45:55,267] [script.py:167] INFO - Building bundle: generated/validation.js
Building bundle: generated/login.css
[2022-02-21 22:45:55,270] [script.py:167] INFO - Building bundle: generated/login.css
Building bundle: generated/main.js
[2022-02-21 22:46:28,632] [script.py:167] INFO - Building bundle: generated/main.js
Building bundle: generated/main.css
[2022-02-21 22:46:29,536] [script.py:167] INFO - Building bundle: generated/main.css

Test that your PowerDNS-Admin runs fine:

(flask)$ ./run.py
[INFO] * Running on http://127.0.0.1:9191/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)
[INFO] * Restarting with stat
[WARNING] * Debugger is active!
[INFO] * Debugger PIN: 466-405-858

Configure systemd service and Nginx

We’re going to be managing PowerDNS-Admin with systemd.

Create a service unit file like below:

$ sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/powerdns-admin.service
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Unit]
Description=PowerDNS-Admin
Requires=powerdns-admin.socket
After=network.target

[Service]
PIDFile=/run/powerdns-admin/pid
User=pdns
Group=pdns
WorkingDirectory=/opt/web/powerdns-admin
ExecStart=/opt/web/powerdns-admin/venv/bin/gunicorn --pid /run/powerdns-admin/pid --bind unix:/run/powerdns-admin/socket 'powerdnsadmin:create_app()'
ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID
ExecStop=/bin/kill -s TERM $MAINPID
PrivateTmp=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Create override file

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/powerdns-admin.service.d/override.conf<<EOF
[Service]
Environment="FLASK_CONF=../configs/production.py"
EOF

Create socket file

$ sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/powerdns-admin.socket
[Unit]
Description=PowerDNS-Admin socket

[Socket]
ListenStream=/run/powerdns-admin/socket

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target

Create environment file

$ sudo vim /etc/tmpfiles.d/powerdns-admin.conf
d /run/powerdns-admin 0755 pdns pdns -

Powerdns-Admin service and set it to start on boot:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart powerdns-admin.socket
sudo systemctl enable powerdns-admin.socket

Set permissions of the

sudo chown -R pdns:pdns /run/powerdns-admin
sudo chown -R pdns:pdns /opt/web/powerdns-admin

Confirm that status is running state:

$ systemctl status powerdns-admin.socket
● powerdns-admin.socket - PowerDNS-Admin socket
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/powerdns-admin.socket; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (listening) since Mon 2022-02-21 22:50:04 UTC; 5min ago
   Triggers: ● powerdns-admin.service
     Listen: /run/powerdns-admin/socket (Stream)
      Tasks: 0 (limit: 4677)
     Memory: 0B
     CGroup: /system.slice/powerdns-admin.socket

Install and Configure Nginx for Powerdns-Admin

Install Nginx using:

sudo apt install nginx

Configure Nginx

sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/powerdns-admin.conf

Add content like below:

server {
  listen *:80;
  server_name               powerdns-admin.example.com;

  index                     index.html index.htm index.php;
  root                      /opt/web/powerdns-admin;
  access_log                /var/log/nginx/powerdns_admin_access.log combined;
  error_log                 /var/log/nginx/powerdns_admin_error.log;

  client_max_body_size              10m;
  client_body_buffer_size           128k;
  proxy_redirect                    off;
  proxy_connect_timeout             90;
  proxy_send_timeout                90;
  proxy_read_timeout                90;
  proxy_buffers                     32 4k;
  proxy_buffer_size                 8k;
  proxy_set_header                  Host $host;
  proxy_set_header                  X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
  proxy_set_header                  X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
  proxy_headers_hash_bucket_size    64;

  location ~ ^/static/  {
    include  /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    root /opt/web/powerdns-admin/powerdnsadmin;

    location ~*  \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ {
      expires 365d;
    }

    location ~* ^.+.(css|js)$ {
      expires 7d;
    }
  }

  location / {
    proxy_pass            http://unix:/run/powerdns-admin/socket;
    proxy_read_timeout    120;
    proxy_connect_timeout 120;
    proxy_redirect        off;
  }
}

Check nginx syntax then restart nginx service:

$ sudo nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx

Visit PowerDNS-Admin web interface.

http://powerdns-admin.example.com/

Click “Create an account” button and Register a user. The first user will be in the Administrator role.

When you log in with created username and password, you should get an interface like below:

Configure PowerDNS API

Edit PowerDNS configuration file and enable the built-in API:

$ sudo vim /etc/powerdns/pdns.conf
# Configure like below
webserver-port=8081
api=yes
api-key=f5ee4390-6542-48c9-a2a0-e5d0bd399490 #You can generate one from https://codepen.io/corenominal/pen/rxOmMJ

Restart powerdns service:

sudo systemctl restart powerdns-admin

Provide PowerDNS API connection information before PowerDNS-Admin can query your PowerDNS data. This is done under Settings > PDNS

Enjoy Administering PowerDNS with PowerDNS-Admin on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04 server.

Reference:

• PowerDNS Documentation
• PowerDNS-Admin Github page

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