DNS Handler
The DNS handler requests a zone transfer (AXFR) from a DNS server. The A and AAAA records are retrieved and used to build an import requisition. This is useful for organizations that use DNS, possibly coupled with an IP management tool, as the database of record for nodes in the network. Rather than ping sweeping the network or entering the nodes manually into the Meridian Requisition UI, you can manage nodes via one or more DNS servers.
The format of the URL for this protocol handler is: dns://<host>[:port]/<zone>[/<foreign-source>/][?expression=<regex>]
Configure DNS requisition
To configure a DNS requisition, follow the steps in Create an external requisition, but specify DNS as the type, and set the host, DNS zone, requisition name, schedule, and rescan behavior.
You can also define location or expression parameters in the Advanced Options area.
DNS import samples
Simple
dns://my-dns-server/myzone.comThis URL imports all A and AAAA records from the zone myzone.com on the host my-dns-server via port 53 (default DNS port).
Since the foreign source is not specified, it will be added to the default requisition.
Regular expression filter
dns://my-dns-server/myzone.com/portland/?expression=^por-.*This URL imports all nodes from the same server and zone, but only imports the nodes in the zone that match the regular expression ^port-.*.
The matching nodes will be assigned to a requisition named 'portland'.
The content of your expression must be URL encoded otherwise characters such as ?, +, and slashes will be considered part of the query string and not the expression.
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dns://my-dns-server/myzone.com/portland/?expression=^por[0-9]%3FLocation
You can use the location parameter to assign a single location to all nodes in this requisition.
This would apply only if you use Minions in your network.
dns://my-dns-server/myzone.com/portland/?location=RaleighBy prefixing with a ~, you can specify a URL-encoded regular expression to determine the location based on the host entries.
The following example derives the location based on the subdomain.
This example uses a URL-encoded regular expression with exactly one capturing group containing the subdomain.
Expression: ^(?:.*\.|)(.*?)\.hs-fulda\.de\.$
dns://my-dns-server/hs-fulda.de/?location=~%5E%28%3F%3A.%2A%5C.%7C%29%28.%2A%3F%29%5C.hs-fulda%5C.de%5C.%24This will associate nodes for the host entries foo.e46.hs-fulda.de. and bar.e46.hs-fulda.de. to the location e46 while hosts like aaa.g51.hs-fulda.de and bbb.g51.hs-fulda.de will be assigned location g51.
| You can use online tools like https://www.urlencoder.org to encode your parameters. |
DNS setup
The DNS import handler performs an AXFR zone transfer request to collect DNS resource records for use in provisioning nodes. Zone transfers are designed for zone replication between DNS servers. You may want to provide additional security mechanisms to protect your DNS infrastructure. At a minimum, you should always restrict AXFR requests to only trusted IP addresses and/or use a hidden, read-only secondary DNS server for Meridian.
You may want to set up a secondary DNS server on your Meridian and configure the rest of the DNS servers to allow transfers to your Meridian server.
This allows you to point the DNS import handler to localhost.
| There is no encryption or authentication available for AXFR transfer requests. Transaction signatures (TSIG) to prevent IP spoofing attempts are currently not supported by Meridian. |
A quick way to test if zone transfers are working is:
dig -t AXFR @<dnsServer> <zone>