PowerDNS on CentOS 7
Posted on by John Mathews

How To Install PowerDNS on CentOS 7

PowerDNS is a MySQL-based DNS server, written in C++ and licensed under the GPL. PowerDNS can be managed through a web interface (PowerAdmin). Unlike Bind, PowerDNS can be setup using a multitude of backends such as Bind Zone Files, or various Databases.

Prerequisites

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo’ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step by step installation PowerDNS on a CentOS 7 server.
Install PowerDNS on CentOS 7

Step 1. First let’s start by ensuring your system is up-to-date.

yum clean all
yum -y update

Step 2. Installing PowerDNS and backend.

First, you need to enable EPEL repository and all required packages on your system:

yum install epel-release
yum install bind-utils pdns pdns-recursor pdns-backend-mysql mariadb mariadb-server

Enable PowerDNS on boot and start PowerDNS server:

systemctl enable mariadb
systemctl enable pdns
systemctl enable pdns-recursor

Step 3. Configuring MariaDB.

By default, MariaDB is not hardened. You can secure MariaDB using the mysql_secure_installation script. you should read and below each steps carefully which will set root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database and access to secure MariaDB.

mysql_secure_installation

Step 4. Create PowerDNS Database and User in MariaDB.

Login as a MariaDB root and create a new database and tables:

### mysql -uroot -p

create user 'powerdns'@'localhost' identified by 'password';
grant all privileges on powerdns.* to 'powerdns'@'localhost';
flush privileges;
use powerdns;

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 DEFAULT NULL,
account VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
) Engine=InnoDB;

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX name_index ON domains(name);

CREATE TABLE records (
id INT 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;

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

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

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) NOT NULL,
comment VARCHAR(64000) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
) Engine=InnoDB;

CREATE INDEX comments_domain_id_idx ON comments (domain_id);
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;

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;

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;

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

Step 5. Configure PowerDNS.

Open the /etc/pdns/pdns.conf file and add the following lines:
allow-axfr-ips=
allow-recursion=
launch=gmysql
gmysql-host=127.0.0.1
gmysql-user=
gmysql-password=
gmysql-dbname=powerdns
local-address=
local-port=53
master=yes
recursor=127.0.0.1:5353
setgid=pdns
setuid=pdns
webserver=yes
webserver-address=
webserver-password=
webserver-port=8081

Finally, restart the Power DNS service:

systemctl restart pdns.service
systemctl enable pdns.service

Step 6. Configure Recursor.

Open the /etc/pdns-recursor/recursor.conf file and add the following lines:

setuid=pdns-recursor
setgid=pdns-recursor
allow-from=127.0.0.0/8
local-address=127.0.0.1
local-port=5353

Start the Recursor service:

systemctl restart pdns-recursor

Test Recursor:

host ping.wpcademy.com 127.0.0.1

Using domain server:
Name: 127.0.0.1
Address: 127.0.0.1#53
Aliases:

ping.wpcademy.com has address 194.109.46.8
ping.wpcademy.com has IPv6 address 2001:888:0:25:169:109:21:66

Congratulation’s! You have successfully installed PowerDNS. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing PowerDNS on CentOS 7 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official PowerDNS web site.

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