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DNS-Editor

Installing from a package

Besides the bare binary there are ready-made distribution packages. The package brings everything a service needs on a server: its own system account, a systemd unit with a restart policy, a configuration file with a freshly generated encryption key and a start password for the first login.

Installing

Section titled “Installing”

The most convenient route on Debian/Ubuntu is the TechEve package repository — set it up once, then updates arrive through the ordinary apt upgrade, and the admin area points out new versions:

Terminal window
curl -fsSL https://repo.techeve.de/setup.sh | sudo sh
sudo apt install dnseditor

Alternatively, packages are attached to every release as Generic Packages in the GitLab project (dnseditor_<version>_amd64.deb, …_arm64.deb, dnseditor-<version>-1.x86_64.rpm, …aarch64.rpm).

Terminal window
# Debian, Ubuntu and relatives (single file)
sudo apt install ./dnseditor_1.0.0_amd64.deb


# RHEL, Fedora, Rocky, SUSE
sudo dnf install ./dnseditor-1.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm

The service runs right after installation and reports the credentials:

DNS-Editor has been installed.
  Web interface: http://127.0.0.1:8422
  Login:         admin / 3ce5002cb3a407e7fc70965a


IMPORTANT: back up the encryption key from /etc/dnseditor/env now.

What the package installs

Section titled “What the package installs”
PathContents
/usr/bin/dnseditorthe binary with the embedded interface
/etc/dnseditor/envconfiguration — created once, never overwritten
/etc/dnseditor/env.examplefull reference of every variable
/lib/systemd/system/dnseditor.serviceunit with Restart=always and hardening
/var/lib/dnseditordatabase and state, mode 0750

Plus a system account dnseditor without a login shell. By default the service listens on 127.0.0.1:8422 only — put a TLS reverse proxy in front for public operation (see Quick start).

Language of the output

Section titled “Language of the output”

Installer and service speak English by default. When the system language is German, the texts appear in German:

Terminal window
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 sudo apt install ./dnseditor_1.0.0_amd64.deb
DNS-Editor wurde installiert.
  Oberflaeche:   http://127.0.0.1:8422
  Anmeldung:     admin / 3ce5002cb3a407e7fc70965a

LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES and LANG are read in that order, then LANGUAGE. C and POSIX count as neutral and stay English.

The German terminal texts deliberately avoid umlauts (“Oberflaeche”, “Schluessel”). Services run under systemd with a neutral locale; real umlauts would regularly show up as question marks or mojibake in the journal, over SSH sessions and in log aggregators. The web interface, the API, e-mails and invoice PDFs are unaffected — they carry proper German.

To make the running service log in German, put the locale into the configuration, because systemd starts services without LANG:

Terminal window
echo 'LANG=de_DE.UTF-8' | sudo tee -a /etc/dnseditor/env
sudo systemctl restart dnseditor

Upgrading and removing

Section titled “Upgrading and removing”

An upgrade replaces the binary and restarts the service; /etc/dnseditor/env is left alone.

Terminal window
sudo apt install ./dnseditor_1.1.0_amd64.deb   # upgrade
sudo apt remove dnseditor                      # stop the service, remove the package

Configuration and database survive even a purge — the env file holds the key without which any backup is worthless. To really get rid of everything, delete /etc/dnseditor and /var/lib/dnseditor by hand.

Building the packages yourself

Section titled “Building the packages yourself”
Terminal window
go install github.com/goreleaser/nfpm/v2/cmd/nfpm@latest
make package        # → dist/packages/*.deb and *.rpm, amd64 + arm64

nfpm needs neither dpkg nor rpmbuild, so it also runs on a Mac and in the CI image. The package definition lives in packaging/.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”