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Managing DNS Zones

DNS zones are the containers for DNS records. In Bindy, zones are defined using the DNSZone custom resource.

Zone Types

Primary Zones

Primary (master) zones contain the authoritative data:

  • Zone data is created and managed on the primary
  • Changes are made by creating/updating DNS record resources
  • Can be transferred to secondary servers

Secondary Zones

Secondary (slave) zones receive data from primary servers:

  • Zone data is received via AXFR/IXFR transfers
  • Read-only - cannot be modified directly
  • Automatically updated when primary changes

Zone Lifecycle

  1. Create Bind9Instance resources to host zones
  2. Create DNSZone resource with instance selector
  3. Add DNS records (A, CNAME, MX, etc.)
  4. Monitor status to ensure zone is active

Instance Selection

Zones are deployed to Bind9Instances using label selectors:

spec:
  instanceSelector:
    matchLabels:
      dns-role: primary
      environment: production

This deploys the zone to all instances matching both labels.

SOA Record

Every primary zone requires an SOA (Start of Authority) record:

spec:
  soaRecord:
    primaryNs: ns1.example.com.      # Primary nameserver
    adminEmail: admin@example.com    # Admin email (@ becomes .)
    serial: 2024010101               # Zone serial number
    refresh: 3600                    # Refresh interval
    retry: 600                       # Retry interval
    expire: 604800                   # Expiration time
    negativeTtl: 86400              # Negative caching TTL

Zone Configuration

TTL (Time To Live)

Set the default TTL for records in the zone:

spec:
  ttl: 3600  # 1 hour default TTL

Individual records can override this with their own TTL values.

Zone Status

Check zone status:

kubectl get dnszone -n dns-system
kubectl describe dnszone example-com -n dns-system

Status conditions indicate:

  • Whether the zone is ready
  • Which instances are hosting the zone
  • Any errors or warnings

Common Operations

Listing Zones

# List all zones
kubectl get dnszones -n dns-system

# Show zones with custom columns
kubectl get dnszones -n dns-system -o custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,ZONE:.spec.zoneName,TYPE:.spec.type

Viewing Zone Details

kubectl describe dnszone example-com -n dns-system

Updating Zones

Edit the zone configuration:

kubectl edit dnszone example-com -n dns-system

Or apply an updated YAML file:

kubectl apply -f zone.yaml

Deleting Zones

kubectl delete dnszone example-com -n dns-system

This removes the zone from all instances but doesn’t delete the instance itself.

Next Steps