PowerDNS has recently published the release of PowerDNS Authoritative DNS Server 5.0, designed to manage the return of DNS zones. The PowerDNS Authoritative Server has historically served up to 30% of the total domain market in Europe and up to 90% of domains with DNSSEC. The project code is distributed under the GPL v2 license.
The PowerDNS Authoritative Server offers the flexibility to store domain information in various databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite3, LMDB, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server, as well as in LDAP and text files in BIND format. Response filtering and redirection to custom handlers in various languages like Lua, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, C, and C++ are also supported. The server also includes features for remote statistics collection through SNMP or Web API, instant restarts, a built-in Lua engine, load balancing based on client location, and more.
A key innovation in PowerDNS Authoritative Server 5.0 is the support for views, similar to the DNS server bind, which allows serving different content zones based on the IP address of the requesting client. This feature enables different versions of zones for internal and external users. The server only uses LMDB backend for storing performances.
Some other changes in PowerDNS Authoritative Server 5.0 include:
- Added support for Unix sockets instead of TCP/IP
- Added support for EDNS cookie
- Enhanced searching capabilities and support for DNS updates in the LMDB backend
- Added a new “PDNSUTIL BACKEND-LOOKUP” team for record searching
- Implemented support for automated authenticated bootstrapping of DNSSEC
- Added logging for parsing errors in packages