PowerShelling Azure DNS Management

DNS is one of those topics that every developer has to deal with. It's also one of those topics some of us developers get to deal with. I love DNS. It allows all manner of flexible addressing, failover, and load-balancing techniques. Understanding DNS takes you a long way in a whole lot of scenarios.

However, the difference between the fun architecture and possibilities of DNS and the implementation has often been the difference between a great sounding class syllabus and the horrible reality of a boatload of homework. Windows DNS, for example, was historically cryptic GUI gibberish. BIND was OK and has a very simple config format, but it scared most people off (you simply cannot win with people who hate GUIs and command lines).

Azure DNS lets you config via the GUI (noooooob; jk, the GUI is pretty nice), ARM templates, Azure CLI (=Linux), and PowerShell.

But, HOW do you manage the config? What format? How do you deploy?

One way is to do everything in ARM templates. Check out this example:


  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.Network/dnszones",
      "name": "example.org",
      "apiVersion": "2016-04-01",
      "location": "global",
      "properties": { }
    },
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.Network/dnszones/a",
      "name": "example.org/mysubdomain01",
      "apiVersion": "2016-04-01",
      "location": "global",
      "dependsOn": [
        "example.org"
      ],
      "properties": {
        "TTL": 3600,
        "ARecords": [{
            "ipv4Address": "127.0.0.1"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ],

There's nothing wrong with that. If you want to have a billion lines of JSON for the sake of a single DNS record, you have fun with that. Ugh. Fine. Yes, it will be idempotent, but are severe overkill for quick updates.

Because PowerShell is effectively the .NET REPL, you can write a simple PowerShell (=.NET) tool to handle any custom format you want.

The following is one way of formatting your DNS updates:


    @(
        @{
            Name="example1"
            Config=@(
            @{
                Type="CNAME"
                Value="hosting01gyfir-alpha.centralus.cloudapp.azure.com"
            })
        },
        @{
            Name= "example2"
            Config=@(
            @{
                Type="A"
                Value="127.0.0.1"
            })
        },
        @{
            Name= "mail"
            Config=@(
            @{
                Type="MX"
                Preference=10
                Exchange="mail.example.com"
            },
            @{
                Type="MX"
                Preference=20
                Exchange="mail2.example.org"
            })
        }
    )

I donno. I find that pretty simple. I'll use that when I setup something new.

Here's my function (with call) to make that work:


    function deployDns { param([Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$rg, [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$zonename, [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] $ttl, [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$records, [bool]$testOnly)
        ($records).foreach({
            $name = $_.Name
            Write-Host "Name: $name"
            $dnsrecords = @()
    
            ($_.Config).foreach({
                $config = $_
                $type = $config.Type
                switch($type) {
                    "CNAME" {
                        Write-Host ("`tCNAME: {0}" -f $config.Value)
                        $dnsrecords += New-AzureRmDnsRecordConfig -Cname $config.Value
                    }
                    "MX" {
                        Write-Host ("`tPreference: {0}" -f $config.Preference)
                        Write-Host ("`tExchange: {0}" -f $config.Exchange)
                        $dnsrecords += New-AzureRmDnsRecordConfig -Preference $config.Preference -Exchange $config.Exchange
                    }
                    "A" {
                        Write-Host ("`tPreference: {0}" -f $config)
                        Write-Host ("`tExchange: {0}" -f $config.Ipv4Address)
                        $dnsrecords += New-AzureRmDnsRecordConfig -Ipv4Address $config.Value
                    }
                    "AAAA" {
                        Write-Host ("`tIpv6Address: {0}" -f $config.Ipv6Address)
                        $dnsrecords += New-AzureRmDnsRecordConfig -Ipv6Address $config.Value
                    }
                    "NS" {
                        Write-Host ("`tNS: {0}" -f $config.Value)
                        $dnsrecords += New-AzureRmDnsRecordConfig -Nsdname $config.Value
                    }
                    "PTR" {
                        Write-Host ("`tPtrdname: {0}" -f $config.Value)
                        $dnsrecords += New-AzureRmDnsRecordConfig -Ptrdname $config.Value
                    }
                    "TXT" {
                        Write-Host ("`tPtrdname: {0}" -f $config.Value)
                        $dnsrecords += New-AzureRmDnsRecordConfig -Value $config.Value
                    }
                }
            })
            Write-Host
            Write-Host "Records:"
            Write-Host $dnsrecords
            if(!$testOnly) {
                New-AzureRmDnsRecordSet -ResourceGroupName $rg -ZoneName $zonename -RecordType $type -Name $name -Ttl $ttl -DnsRecords @dnsrecords
            }
            Write-Host
            Write-Host
        })
    }
    
    deployDns -testOnly $true -rg 'davidbetz01' -zonename "davidbetz.net" -ttl 3600 -records @(
        @{
            Name="example1"
            Config=@(
            @{
                Type="CNAME"
                Value="hosting01gyfir-alpha.centralus.cloudapp.azure.com"
            })
        },
        @{
            Name= "example2"
            Config=@(
            @{
                Type="A"
                Value="127.0.0.1"
            })
        },
        @{
            Name= "mail"
            Config=@(
            @{
                Type="MX"
                Preference=10
                Exchange="mail.example.com"
            },
            @{
                Type="MX"
                Preference=20
                Exchange="mail2.example.org"
            })
        }
    )

Is this insane? Probably. That's what I'm known for. ARM templates might be smarter given their idempotent nature, and I've found myself using the GUI now and again.

For now, just keep in mind that PowerShell lets you me ultra flexible with your Azure configuration, not just Azure DNS.