Quick start - Running the example project¶
This section contains information, about how to use the example Django project, which ships with the distribution package, in order to quickly test the features of django-powerdns-manager.
Warning
The example project has been configured for testing and debugging, therefore it should only be used for such purposes. Please, do not use the example project in production.
The example Django project has been configured to use two SQLite databases,
default (main.db), which is the main database for the Django project,
and powerdns (powerdns.db), which is the database where DNS data is stored.
DNS data can be perfectly stored to the default database, but separate
databases are used in this example project for demonstration purposes.
Consequently, PowerDNS has to be configured to use the SQLite backend in order to be able to communicate with the managed database. A sample configuration file for PowerDNS is included in the example directory.
The following instructions will guide you run the Django project’s application server and also run an instance of PowerDNS for testing purposes.
It is assumed that you have obtained a copy of django-powerdns-manager
and have changed to the example directory:
hg clone https://bitbucket.org/gnotaras/django-powerdns-manager
cd django-powerdns-manager/example/
Install required software¶
The recommended version of PowerDNS is 3.4.1.
Install the required software by following the operating system specific instructions below.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Fedora¶
Install system packages:
yum install pdns pdns-backend-sqlite sqlite python-sqlite2 python-virtualenv
Install Python modules¶
Note
Current directory is: django-powerdns-manager/example/
It is highly recommended to use the virtualenv utility to create a virtual
environment, in which all Python module dependencies can be installed without
affecting the system-wide Python library. However, this step is completely
optional:
virtualenv --system-site-packages testenv
source testenv/bin/activate
Install the required Python modules in order to be able to run the example django-powerdns-manager project and build this documentation:
pip install -r ../requirements.txt
Populate the database¶
Note
Current directory is: django-powerdns-manager/example/
First, populate the Django project’s database:
python manage.py migrate
You will be prompted to create a superuser. Create this user and take a note of the username and password as this is what you will use to log into the web based administration interface.
Finally, populate the dedicated django-powerdns-manager database:
python manage.py migrate --database=powerdns
Optional step: load the default ‘PowerDNS Managers’ group to make it easier to to test the interface using multiple users:
python manage.py loaddata default_pdns_groups
Start the PowerDNS server¶
Note
Current directory is: django-powerdns-manager/example/
The example project contains a configuration file for PowerDNS.
First, start the server in the foreground to check that everything is working as expected:
$ pdns_server --local-address=192.168.0.101 --config-dir=`pwd`
Nov 02 11:42:33 Reading random entropy from '/dev/urandom'
Nov 02 11:42:33 This is module gsqlite3 reporting
Nov 02 11:42:33 This is a standalone pdns
Nov 02 11:42:33 Listening on controlsocket in '/var/run/pdns.controlsocket'
Nov 02 11:42:33 UDP server bound to 192.168.0.101:53
Nov 02 11:42:33 TCP server bound to 192.168.0.101:53
Nov 02 11:42:33 PowerDNS 3.1 (C) 2001-2012 PowerDNS.COM BV (Oct 22 2012, 04:10:24, gcc 4.4.6 20120305 (Red Hat 4.4.6-4)) starting up
Nov 02 11:42:33 PowerDNS comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it according to the terms of the GPL version 2.
Nov 02 11:42:33 Creating backend connection for TCP
Nov 02 11:42:33 gsqlite3: connection to 'powerdns.db' successful
Nov 02 11:42:33 gsqlite3: connection to 'powerdns.db' successful
Nov 02 11:42:33 About to create 3 backend threads for UDP
Nov 02 11:42:33 gsqlite3: connection to 'powerdns.db' successful
Nov 02 11:42:33 gsqlite3: connection to 'powerdns.db' successful
Nov 02 11:42:33 gsqlite3: connection to 'powerdns.db' successful
Nov 02 11:42:33 gsqlite3: connection to 'powerdns.db' successful
Nov 02 11:42:33 gsqlite3: connection to 'powerdns.db' successful
Nov 02 11:42:33 gsqlite3: connection to 'powerdns.db' successful
Nov 02 11:42:33 Done launching threads, ready to distribute questions
--local-address=192.168.0.101 is used to make PowerDNS bind on the network
interface with IP 192.168.0.101. Set this according to your network
configuration or omit this option completely to make PowerDNS bind on all
available network interfaces.
Note
If you try to run the server as an unprivileged user, you will probably encounter permission issues. In such a case, you can bind PowerDNS to a port number greater than 1024 and also instruct it to create its control socket in the current directory. For example:
pdns_server --local-address=192.168.0.220 --local-port=5353 --config-dir=`pwd` --socket-dir=`pwd`
The output above indicates that everything is running fine, so stop this
process by pressing Ctrl-C and start PowerDNS in the background by adding
--daemon to the command line arguments. For example:
pdns_server --daemon --local-address=192.168.0.101 --config-dir=`pwd`
Note
To kill the background server at any time invoke the command:
killall pdns_server
Start the PowerDNS Manager application server¶
Note
Current directory is: django-powerdns-manager/example/
Start the internal Django HTTP server:
python manage.py runserver 192.168.0.101:9999
Other notes¶
After you have finished testing django-powerdns-manager and only if you had
used virtualenv, it is now time to deactivate the virtual Python environment.
Run the following command:
deactivate