This tutorial describes how to use the RFC2136 with either BIND or Windows DNS.
To use external-dns with BIND: generate/procure a key, configure DNS and add a deployment of external-dns.
- RFC2136 was developed for and tested with BIND DNS server. This documentation assumes that you already have a configured and working server. If you don't, please check BIND documents or tutorials.
- If your DNS is provided for you, ask for a TSIG key authorized to update and transfer the zone you wish to update. The key will look something like below. Skip the next steps wrt BIND setup.
key "externaldns-key" {
algorithm hmac-sha256;
secret "96Ah/a2g0/nLeFGK+d/0tzQcccf9hCEIy34PoXX2Qg8=";
};
- If you are your own DNS administrator create a TSIG key. Use
tsig-keygen -a hmac-sha256 externaldns
or on older distributionsdnssec-keygen -a HMAC-SHA256 -b 256 -n HOST externaldns
. You will end up with a key printed to standard out like above (or in the case of dnssec-keygen in a file calledKexternaldns......key
).
If you do not administer your own DNS, skip to RFC provider configuration
- Edit your named.conf file (or appropriate included file) and add/change the
following.
- Make sure You are listening on the right interfaces. At least whatever interface external-dns will be communicating over and the interface that faces the internet.
- Add the key that you generated/was given to you above. Copy paste the four lines that you got (not the same as the example key) into your file.
- Create a zone for kubernetes. If you already have a zone, skip to the next step. (I put the zone in it's own subdirectory because named, which shouldn't be running as root, needs to create a journal file and the default zone directory isn't writeable by named).
zone "k8s.example.org" { type master; file "/etc/bind/pri/k8s/k8s.zone"; };
- Add your key to both transfer and update. For instance with our previous zone.
zone "k8s.example.org" { type master; file "/etc/bind/pri/k8s/k8s.zone"; allow-transfer { key "externaldns-key"; }; update-policy { grant externaldns-key zonesub ANY; }; };
- Create a zone file (k8s.zone):
$TTL 60 ; 1 minute k8s.example.org IN SOA k8s.example.org. root.k8s.example.org. ( 16 ; serial 60 ; refresh (1 minute) 60 ; retry (1 minute) 60 ; expire (1 minute) 60 ; minimum (1 minute) ) NS ns.k8s.example.org. ns A 123.456.789.012
- Reload (or restart) named
To use external-dns add an ingress or a LoadBalancer service with a host that is part of the domain-filter. For example both of the following would produce A records.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: nginx
annotations:
external-dns.alpha.kubernetes.io/hostname: svc.example.org
spec:
type: LoadBalancer
ports:
- port: 80
targetPort: 80
selector:
app: nginx
---
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: my-ingress
spec:
rules:
- host: ingress.example.org
http:
paths:
- path: /
backend:
serviceName: my-service
servicePort: 8000
The default DNS record TTL (Time-To-Live) is 0 seconds. You can customize this value by setting the annotation external-dns.alpha.kubernetes.io/ttl
. e.g., modify the service manifest YAML file above:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: nginx
annotations:
external-dns.alpha.kubernetes.io/hostname: nginx.external-dns-test.my-org.com
external-dns.alpha.kubernetes.io/ttl: 60
spec:
...
This will set the DNS record's TTL to 60 seconds.
A default TTL for all records can be set using the the flag with a time in seconds, minutes or hours, such as --rfc2136-min-ttl=60s
There are other annotation that can affect the generation of DNS records, but these are beyond the scope of this tutorial and are covered in the main documentation.
If you want to generate reverse DNS records for your services, you have to enable the functionality using the --rfc2136-create-ptr
flag. You have also to add the zone to the list of zones managed by ExternalDNS via the --rfc2136-zone
and --domain-filter
flags.
An example of a valid configuration is the following:
--domain-filter=157.168.192.in-addr.arpa --rfc2136-zone=157.168.192.in-addr.arpa
PTR record tracking is managed by the A/AAAA record so you can't create PTR records for already generated A/AAAA records.
You may install external-dns and test on a local machine by running:
external-dns --txt-owner-id k8s --provider rfc2136 --rfc2136-host=192.168.0.1 --rfc2136-port=53 --rfc2136-zone=k8s.example.org --rfc2136-tsig-secret=96Ah/a2g0/nLeFGK+d/0tzQcccf9hCEIy34PoXX2Qg8= --rfc2136-tsig-secret-alg=hmac-sha256 --rfc2136-tsig-keyname=externaldns-key --rfc2136-tsig-axfr --source ingress --once --domain-filter=k8s.example.org --dry-run
- host should be the IP of your master DNS server.
- tsig-secret should be changed to match your secret.
- tsig-keyname needs to match the keyname you used (if you changed it).
- domain-filter can be used as shown to filter the domains you wish to update.
In order to use external-dns with your cluster you need to add a deployment with access to your ingress and service resources. The following are two example manifests with and without RBAC respectively.
- With RBAC:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
name: external-dns
labels:
name: external-dns
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: external-dns
namespace: external-dns
rules:
- apiGroups:
- ""
resources:
- services
- endpoints
- pods
- nodes
verbs:
- get
- watch
- list
- apiGroups:
- extensions
- networking.k8s.io
resources:
- ingresses
verbs:
- get
- list
- watch
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
name: external-dns
namespace: external-dns
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
name: external-dns-viewer
namespace: external-dns
roleRef:
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
kind: ClusterRole
name: external-dns
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
name: external-dns
namespace: external-dns
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: external-dns
namespace: external-dns
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: external-dns
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: external-dns
spec:
serviceAccountName: external-dns
containers:
- name: external-dns
image: registry.k8s.io/external-dns/external-dns:v0.14.2
args:
- --registry=txt
- --txt-prefix=external-dns-
- --txt-owner-id=k8s
- --provider=rfc2136
- --rfc2136-host=192.168.0.1
- --rfc2136-port=53
- --rfc2136-zone=k8s.example.org
- --rfc2136-zone=k8s.your-zone.org
- --rfc2136-tsig-secret=96Ah/a2g0/nLeFGK+d/0tzQcccf9hCEIy34PoXX2Qg8=
- --rfc2136-tsig-secret-alg=hmac-sha256
- --rfc2136-tsig-keyname=externaldns-key
- --rfc2136-tsig-axfr
- --source=ingress
- --domain-filter=k8s.example.org
- Without RBAC:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
name: external-dns
labels:
name: external-dns
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: external-dns
namespace: external-dns
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: external-dns
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: external-dns
spec:
containers:
- name: external-dns
image: registry.k8s.io/external-dns/external-dns:v0.14.2
args:
- --registry=txt
- --txt-prefix=external-dns-
- --txt-owner-id=k8s
- --provider=rfc2136
- --rfc2136-host=192.168.0.1
- --rfc2136-port=53
- --rfc2136-zone=k8s.example.org
- --rfc2136-zone=k8s.your-zone.org
- --rfc2136-tsig-secret=96Ah/a2g0/nLeFGK+d/0tzQcccf9hCEIy34PoXX2Qg8=
- --rfc2136-tsig-secret-alg=hmac-sha256
- --rfc2136-tsig-keyname=externaldns-key
- --rfc2136-tsig-axfr
- --source=ingress
- --domain-filter=k8s.example.org
While external-dns
was not developed or tested against Microsoft DNS, it can be configured to work against it. YMMV.
- Create a DNS zone
- Enable insecure dynamic updates for the zone
- Enable Zone Transfers to all servers
You'll want to configure external-dns
similarly to the following:
...
- --provider=rfc2136
- --rfc2136-host=192.168.0.1
- --rfc2136-port=53
- --rfc2136-zone=k8s.example.org
- --rfc2136-zone=k8s.your-zone.org
- --rfc2136-insecure
- --rfc2136-tsig-axfr # needed to enable zone transfers, which is required for deletion of records.
...
- Create a DNS zone
- Enable secure dynamic updates for the zone
- Enable Zone Transfers to all servers
If you see any error messages which indicate that external-dns
was somehow not able to fetch
existing DNS records from your DNS server, this could mean that you forgot about step 3.
DNS with secure updates relies upon a valid Kerberos configuration running within the external-dns
container. At this time, you will need to create a ConfigMap for the external-dns
container to use and mount it in your deployment. Below is an example of a working Kerberos configuration inside a ConfigMap definition. This may be different depending on many factors in your environment:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
creationTimestamp: null
name: krb5.conf
data:
krb5.conf: |
[logging]
default = FILE:/var/log/krb5libs.log
kdc = FILE:/var/log/krb5kdc.log
admin_server = FILE:/var/log/kadmind.log
[libdefaults]
dns_lookup_realm = false
ticket_lifetime = 24h
renew_lifetime = 7d
forwardable = true
rdns = false
pkinit_anchors = /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
default_ccache_name = KEYRING:persistent:%{uid}
default_realm = YOUR-REALM.COM
[realms]
YOUR-REALM.COM = {
kdc = dc1.yourdomain.com
admin_server = dc1.yourdomain.com
}
[domain_realm]
yourdomain.com = YOUR-REALM.COM
.yourdomain.com = YOUR-REALM.COM
In most cases, the realm name will probably be the same as the domain name, so you can simply replace YOUR-REALM.COM
with something like YOURDOMAIN.COM
.
Once the ConfigMap is created, the container external-dns
container needs to be told to mount that ConfigMap as a volume at the default Kerberos configuration location. The pod spec should include a similar configuration to the following:
...
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /etc/krb5.conf
name: kerberos-config-volume
subPath: krb5.conf
...
volumes:
- configMap:
defaultMode: 420
name: krb5.conf
name: kerberos-config-volume
...
You'll want to configure external-dns
similarly to the following:
...
- --provider=rfc2136
- --rfc2136-gss-tsig
- --rfc2136-host=dns-host.yourdomain.com
- --rfc2136-port=53
- --rfc2136-zone=your-zone.com
- --rfc2136-zone=your-secondary-zone.com
- --rfc2136-kerberos-username=your-domain-account
- --rfc2136-kerberos-password=your-domain-password
- --rfc2136-kerberos-realm=your-domain.com
- --rfc2136-tsig-axfr # needed to enable zone transfers, which is required for deletion of records.
...
As noted above, the --rfc2136-kerberos-realm
flag is completely optional and won't be necessary in many cases.
Most likely, you will only need it if you see errors similar to this: KRB Error: (68) KDC_ERR_WRONG_REALM Reserved for future use
.
The flag --rfc2136-host
can be set to the host's domain name or IP address.
However, it also determines the name of the Kerberos principal which is used during authentication.
This means that Active Directory might only work if this is set to a specific domain name, possibly leading to errors like this:
KDC_ERR_S_PRINCIPAL_UNKNOWN Server not found in Kerberos database
.
To fix this, try setting --rfc2136-host
to the "actual" hostname of your DNS server.
If your DNS server does zone transfers over TLS, you can instruct external-dns
to connect over TLS with the following flags:
--rfc2136-use-tls
Will enable TLS for both zone transfers and for updates.--tls-ca=<cert-file>
Is the path to a file containing certificate(s) that can be used to verify the DNS server--tls-client-cert=<client-cert-file>
and--tls-client-cert-key=<client-key-file>
Set the client certificate and key for mutual verification--rfc2136-skip-tls-verify
Disables verification of the certificate supplied by the DNS server.
It is currently not supported to do only zone transfers over TLS, but not the updates. They are enabled and disabled together.