Zone management with OctoDNS

OctoDNS provides a set of tools and patterns that make it easy to manage your DNS records across multiple providers. The resulting config can live in a repository and be deployed just like the rest of your code, maintaining a clear history and using your existing review and workflow.

One of the requirements to use the OctoDNS plugin for ClouDNS is to have access to our HTTP API. All our Premium DNS and DDoS Protected DNS plans include access to the HTTP API and can be used to manage your zones with OctoDNS.

Here are the steps for the installation and configuration of the module:

1. Install OctoDNS. You can download OctoDNS from here or you can install it using this command

   pip install octodns

2. Install OctoDNS module for ClouDNS from here or you can install it using this command

   pip install octodns-cloudns

3. The ClouDNS module has to be moved to the provider folder of OctoDNS. In order to do that, you have to complete these two steps:

   • Find where the downloaded files are with this command:

     pip show octodns | grep Location

   • Open the folder you have received from the first command. There should be two folders one for octodns and one for octodns-cloudns. Copy the file _init_.py from octodns-cloudns and put it in the octodns folder named provider.

4. Create a configuration file. For example config.yaml

   
   providers:
     cloudns_account1:
       class: octodns.provider.cloudns.ClouDNSProvider
       auth_id: xxx
       auth_password: xxx
     config:
       class: octodns.provider.yaml.YamlProvider
       directory: ./config
       default_ttl: 3600
   zones:
     example.com.:
       sources:
         - config
       targets:
         - cloudns_account1
   
   

   providers - write all of the settings for the providers.
   zones - write the name of the zone after which you have to add:
   sources - where the information will be received from.
   targets - in which provider will the changes be made

5. You have to create a file with the records which will be added. In this example, the records will be in the provider config directory - ./config

   • Create a new directory with this command:

     mkdir config

   • Create a file with the name of the zone + .yaml. Example: example.yaml

   • Add the records in the newly created file. Example records:

         
     ---
     '':
       - type: A
         value: your-server-ipv4-address
     
       - type: AAAA
         value: your-server-ipv6-address
     
       - type: MX
         value:
           exchange: mail.your-domain.
           preference: 10
     
       - type: TXT
         value: v=spf1 -all
     
     _dmarc:
       type: TXT
       value: v=DMARC1\; p=reject\; rua=mailto:abuse@your-domain\; aspf=s\; adkim=s\;
     
     mail:
       - type: A
         value: your-server-ipv4-address
     
       - type: AAAA
         value: your-server-ipv6-address
     
     www:
       - type: A
         value: your-server-ipv4-address
     
       - type: AAAA
         value: your-server-ipv6-address
         
         

6. Apply the configuration with these commands:

   • Apply only a plan without updating the zone:

     octodns-sync --config-file config.yaml

   • Apply all the changes:

     octodns-sync --config-file config.yaml --doit

   • If there are NS records that have to be created for the root domain, --force has to be added to the last command.

At the moment, Geo records are supported only for A and AAAA records in OctoDNS.

The supported record types include: A, AAAA, ALIAS, CAA, CNAME, DNAME, MX, NS, PTR, SPF, SRV, SSHFP, TXT, TLSA, LOC, and NAPTR. These are all the record types supported by both OctoDNS and ClouDNS.

The ClouDNS OctoDNS module does not support dynamic records.

If a record type is provided that is not supported, the module will simply skip it.