Introduction

A Docker image for running a PowerDNS Recursor. This image is published at cloudhotspot/pdns-recursor on Docker Hub.

Quick Start

Running with default settings:

$ docker run -p 53:53/udp cloudhotspot/pdns-recursor

Overriding a Single Host-to-IP Mapping

The default settings export the local /etc/hosts file of the container. This is handy as you can add a host-to-ip overrides via the docker command line:

$ docker run -p 53:53/udp --add-host=www.gmail.com:1.1.1.1 cloudhotspot/pdns-recursor

The default settings are listed below:

allow-from=0.0.0.0/0
local-address=0.0.0.0
export-etc-hosts=yes

Set Runtime Options

You can pass any of the pdns_recursor options to the container (see PowerDNS Recursor manpage).

For example, to disable exporting the local hosts files:

$ docker run -p 53:53/udp cloudhotspot/pdns-recursor --export-etc-hosts=no

Quick and Dirty DNS Server

To export a zone file as authoritative, map a path on your Docker host with the zone file(s) in BIND format (see example below) to your container and use the --auth-zones flag:

$ docker run -p 53:53/udp -v /path/to/share:/var/zones cloudhotspot/pdns-recursor --auth-zones=example.com=/var/zones/example.com

This creates a quick and dirty DNS server without the usual ceremony. Here is an example zone file:

$TTL	86400 ; 24 hours could have been written as 24h or 1d
; $TTL used for all RRs without explicit TTL value
$ORIGIN example.com.
@  1D  IN  SOA ns1.example.com. hostmaster.example.com. (
			      2002022401 ; serial
			      3H ; refresh
			      15 ; retry
			      1w ; expire
			      3h ; minimum
			     )
       IN  NS     ns1.example.com. ; in the domain
       IN  NS     ns2.smokeyjoe.com. ; external to domain
       IN  MX  10 mail.another.com. ; external mail provider
; server host definitions
ns1    IN  A      192.168.0.1  ;name server definition     
www    IN  A      192.168.0.2  ;web server definition
ftp    IN  CNAME  www.example.com.  ;ftp server definition
; non server domain hosts
bill   IN  A      192.168.0.3
fred   IN  A      192.168.0.4