How to Install PowerDNS and PowerDNS-Admin on Debian Buster

Important note: this post is outdated, use the new one instead.

Hi! This is a script-guide to install Powerdns (authoritative) and Powerdns-Admin on Debian 10 (buster), for Debian 9 (stretch) see this old post. This is a quick way, see instructions below, here is the commented code for the impatient.

#!/bin/bash

# get script absolute path
MY_PATH="`dirname \"$0\"`"
MY_PATH="`( cd \"$MY_PATH\" && pwd )`"
if [ -z "$MY_PATH" ] ; then
          exit 1
fi

# upgrade system and install dependencies
apt-get update && apt-get -y upgrade
apt-get -y install software-properties-common dirmngr
apt-get -y install git python-pip

# install and prepare last stable mariadb version
apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xF1656F24C74CD1D8
add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64] http://mariadb.mirror.liquidtelecom.com/repo/10.4/debian buster main'
apt-get update && apt-get -y install mariadb-server

# run the secure script to set root password, remove test database and disable remote root user login, you can safely accept the defaults and provide an strong root password when prompted
mysql_secure_installation
mysql -u root -p < ${MY_PATH}/sql01.sql # provide previously set password

# install powerdns and configure db parameters
apt-get -y install pdns-server pdns-backend-mysql
cp ${MY_PATH}/pdns.local.gmysql.conf /etc/powerdns/pdns.d/
vi /etc/powerdns/pdns.d/pdns.local.gmysql.conf # db configuration

# install dnsutils for testing, curl and finally PowerDNS-Admin
apt-get -y install python3-dev dnsutils curl
apt-get -y install -y default-libmysqlclient-dev python-mysqldb libsasl2-dev libffi-dev libldap2-dev libssl-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libxmlsec1-dev pkg-config
curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | apt-key add -
echo 'deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
apt-get -y install apt-transport-https # needed for https repo
apt-get update
apt-get -y install yarn
git clone https://github.com/ngoduykhanh/PowerDNS-Admin.git /opt/web/powerdns-admin
cd /opt/web/powerdns-admin
pip install virtualenv
virtualenv -p python3 flask
. ./flask/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
mysql -u root -p < ${MY_PATH}/sql02.sql
cp config_template.py config.py
vi config.py # db configuration
export FLASK_APP=app/__init__.py
flask db upgrade
flask db migrate -m "Init DB"

# install/update nodejs, needed to use yarn
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | bash -
apt-get install -y nodejs
yarn install --pure-lockfile
flask assets build

# create systemd service file and activate it
cp ${MY_PATH}/powerdns-admin.service /etc/systemd/system/
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start powerdns-admin
systemctl enable powerdns-admin

# install nginx and configure site
apt-get -y install nginx
cp ${MY_PATH}/powerdns-admin.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t && service nginx restart

# activate powerdns api, change api-key if needed
echo 'api=yes' >> /etc/powerdns/pdns.conf
echo 'api-key=789456123741852963' >> /etc/powerdns/pdns.conf
echo 'webserver=yes' >> /etc/powerdns/pdns.conf
echo 'webserver-address=0.0.0.0' >> /etc/powerdns/pdns.conf
echo 'webserver-allow-from=0.0.0.0/0,::/0' >> /etc/powerdns/pdns.conf
echo 'webserver-port=8081' >> /etc/powerdns/pdns.conf
service pdns restart

# now go to server_name url and create a first user account that will be admin
# log in
# configure api access on powerdns-admin
# enjoy

Installation notes

You can execute the executable file install.sh inside the zip file as root, or execute lines one by one from code above. Whatever method you use you should read this notes carefully in order to fully understand what is going on, also read comments in script, there could be useful tips there. I assume that yo have a minimum linux knowledge and that you are comfortable with the shell and command line utilities.

1. Download and uncompress pdns-buster.zip anywhere in the server, then cd into pdns folder.
2. Edit sql01.sql and modify the second line to set a secure password instead of the default one ‘mypassword’.
3. Edit sql02.sql and modify the second line to set a secure password instead of the default one ‘mypassword’.
4. Edit powerdns-admin.conf and modify the value of server_name to match the fqdn we want our pdnsadmin be served from.
5. Execute install.sh script:
   • Set mariadb root password when prompted.
   • Provide mariadb root password to execute sql01.sql when prompted.
   • Edit /etc/powerdns/pdns.d/pdns.local.gmysql.conf db settings to match this ones:
     • user: pdnsuser
     • password: <the one provided in step 2>
     • host: localhost
     • db name: pdns
   • Provide mariadb root password to execute sql02.sql when prompted.
   • Edit /opt/web/powerdns-admin/config.py db settings to match this ones:
     • user: pdnsuser
     • password: <the one provided in step 2>
     • host: localhost
     • db name: pdns
6. Enter web interface (domain provided in step 4) and click on create account to create the first account, thal will be an admin account.
7. Log in into pdnsAdmin with the newly created account.
8. Configure pdns api and pdns key, http://127.0.0.1:8081/ and the one provided at the end of the script.
9. Enjoy!