pdorclient

Use pdorclient to read and manipulate PowerDNS zone and record data from your Python applications. This client-side library was designed to work with the RESTful API exposed by a modified version of PowerDNS on Rails.

Usage

Reads:

>>> from pdorclient import Zone, Record
>>> zone = Zone.lookup('example.com')
>>> zone.name
'example.com'
>>> zone.type == Zone.TYPE_NATIVE
True
>>> zone.rtype
'NATIVE'
>>> zone.created_at
datetime.datetime(2011, 5, 20, 5, 5, 15)
>>> print "\n".join(map(lambda x: "Name: %s\tType: %4s\tContent: %s"
... % (x.name, x.rtype, x.content), zone.records))
Name: mail.example.com  Type:    A      Content: 10.0.0.4
Name: example.com       Type:   MX      Content: mail.example.com
Name: example.com       Type:    A      Content: 10.0.0.3
Name: ns2.example.com   Type:    A      Content: 10.0.0.2
Name: ns1.example.com   Type:    A      Content: 10.0.0.1
Name: example.com       Type:   NS      Content: ns2.example.com
Name: example.com       Type:   NS      Content: ns1.example.com
Name: example.com       Type:  SOA      Content: ns1.example.com admin@example.com 2011052307 10800 7200 604800 10800

Zones with many thousands of DNS resource records may take some time to load with the approach shown above. lookup() takes an optional argument to limit the scope of its search. Supposing an organisation had taken to the convention of naming their hosts after their physical location, the following snippet would limit the scope of a search to DNS resource records for hosts in a hypothetical Room 404:

from pdorclient import lookup_zone
zone = Zone.lookup('example.net', 'r404-')

Writes:

>>> from pdorclient import Zone, Record
>>> zone = Zone(name='example.net', type=Zone.TYPE_MASTER,
... ttl=3600)
>>> zone.records.append(Record(name='example.net',
... type=Record.TYPE_SOA,
... content='ns1.example.net admin@example.net 1 1 1 1 1',
... ttl=7200))
>>> zone.save()

To create a new zone from an existing template:

>>> from pdorclient import Template, Zone
>>> zone = Zone.from_template(name='example.net',
... template='I am a template', type=Zone.TYPE_MASTER)
>>> zone.save()

Read tests/ for all you can eat.

Configuration

Authentication credentials must currently be stored on disk. On UNIX platforms, this file should live at /etc/pdorclient.conf and look like this:

[client]
url=https://moocows.and.unicorns/
username=robot
password=yourpasswordhere

Where url points at your PowerDNS on Rails installation, and username and password are PowerDNS on Rails administrative credentials.

The library will also look for pdorclient.conf in your current working directory to simplify testing. If neither of those options are palatable, supply your own path to your configuration using the config argument wherever you see it.

Your configuration must not be globally readable!

Terminology

What PowerDNS and PowerDNS on Rails call a domain we call a zone.

Development

Install an instance of PowerDNS on Rails, and from your PDOR working directory:

rake db:migrate

then:

rake db:seed

You do not need a working PowerDNS nameserver for unit testing. It is, however, a good idea to include at least one functional nameserver in your wider integration testing.

Create a pdorclient.conf file alongside this README to match your new PDOR installation:

[client]
url=http://127.0.0.1:3000/
username=robot
password=yourpasswordhere

Install coverage. Run all tests and output a coverage report with:

make coverage

Author

Saj Goonatilleke <sg@redu.cx>