How To Install PowerDNS on CentOS 6

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PowerDNS on CentOS 6. For those of you who didn’t know, 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 set up using a multitude of backends such as Bind Zone Files, or various Databases.

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. I will show you the step-by-step installation of PowerDNS on CentOS 6.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: CentOS 6.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install PowerDNS on CentOS 6

Step 1. First, you need to enable the EPEL repository on your system.

## RHEL/CentOS 6 64-Bit ##
# wget http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
# rpm -ivh epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

## RHEL/CentOS 6 32-Bit ##
# wget http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
# rpm -ivh epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

Step 2. Install MySQL.

yum -y install mysql mysql-server

Enable MySQL on boot and start MySQL server:

service mysqld start
chkconfig mysqld on

Step 3. Configuring MySQL.

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

mysql_secure_installation

Step 4. Create a PowerDNS Database and User in MySQL.

Log in as a MySQL root and create a new database and tables:

mysql -uroot -p

create database powerdns;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON powerdns.* TO 'powerdns'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'powerdnsPassword';
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)
);
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(6) DEFAULT NULL,
content VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
ttl INT DEFAULT NULL,
prio INT DEFAULT NULL,
change_date INT DEFAULT NULL,
primary key(id)
);
CREATE INDEX rec_name_index ON records(name);
CREATE INDEX nametype_index ON records(name,type);
CREATE INDEX domain_id ON records(domain_id);

CREATE TABLE supermasters (
ip VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL,
nameserver VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
account VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL
);
exit;

Step 5. Install PowerDNS.

yum install pdns-backend-mysql pdns bind-utils

Enable PowerDNS on boot and start the PowerDNS server:

service pdns start
chkconfig pdns on

Step 6. Configure PowerDNS.

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

launch=gmysql
gmysql-host=localhost
gmysql-user=powerdns
gmysql-password=powerdnsPassword
gmysql-dbname=powerdns

Finally, restart the Power DNS service:

service pdns restart

Congratulations! You have successfully installed PowerDNS. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing PowerDNS on CentOS 6 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official PowerDNS website.

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