One of my projects called pdnsapp is a Python based microframework aimed to help develop DNS based applications, very much like Flask or Bottle do for HTTP or like Lamson does with SMTP. Like most of the frameworks of this kind it needs an ‘application server’ to run. This server for pdnsapp is currently PowerDNS. For basic functionality it has no dependencies other than the Python standard libraries.

The framework features:

• Routing: nicely maps DNS queries to python functions using easy to understand python decorators.
• Utilities: comes with helper classes and functions for easier request processing.
• Testing: a near-complete test suite guarantees glitch-free operation of the framework, available for online and offline testing of functions.

Example: ‘Hello World’ in pdnsapp: #

from dns import match, run
from dnstypes import *

@match(fqdn='hello.end.re', type='TXT')
def hello_world(request):
    return TXT('Hello World!')
    
if __name__ == '__main__':
    run()

This script spits back a TXT record containing a Hello World! string for every DNS query asking for the name hello.end.re and type of TXT or ANY.

Make it work: #

• Let PowerDNS run pdnsapp as a PIPE backend by specifying to launch the pipe backend as well as the original backend(s) and the script name to run pdnsapp in file /etc/powerdns/pdns.d/pdns.local:

[...]
launch=[...],pipe
pipe-command=/etc/powerdns/pdnsapp/pdnsapp.py

• Restart PowerDNS. After that you can ask your nameserver to see our new example function working with the command:

# dig -t txt hello.end.re @127.0.0.1

; <<>> DiG 9.8.4-rpz2+rl005.12-P1 <<>> -t txt hello.end.re @127.0.0.1
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 29241
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;hello.end.re.			IN	TXT

;; ANSWER SECTION:
hello.end.re.		86400	IN	TXT	"Hello World!"

;; Query time: 54 msec

Download and install #

Install pdnsapp from its GitHub repo by cloning it right in place with the following command:

# cd /etc/powerdns
# git clone https://github.com/endreszabo/pdnsapp.git

Okay, but what is it good for? #

Simply put: it brings dynamism to the formerly static world of DNS.

It can fulfill tasks from a simple what-is-my-ip-address responder application to an automatic A-PTR address mapper for ISPs handling vast amount of IP addresses or to a more complex, truly stateful DNS based loadbalancing solution that returns IP addresses of the least loaded frontend servers.

But DNS records are cached for hours or days #

Well, DNS itself was designed to be static. And by static it means DNS records usually have hours to days time-to-live, thus caching nameservers would not expect a record’s value to change within this period. We can make DNS records more dynamic by drastically reducing their TTL.