Private DNS

Private DNS gives your servers names that work only inside your networks. Add a zone like internal, give the database server the name db, and your applications connect to db.internal instead of an address. From the internet these names do not exist.

Private DNS is free.

Who uses it

• Servers in the private networks of the router. They get the gateway as their DNS server through DHCP, with a public resolver second, so the internet keeps working if the gateway is down. A server that was running before the gateway was turned on picks it up when it renews its DHCP lease or after a reboot.
• Devices on VPN Gateway. Their config points DNS at the gateway, 100.64.0.1.

A server with its own DNS settings, for example a fixed nameserver in /etc/resolv.conf, does not see the private zones.

Private DNS runs on the same router service as VPN Gateway. If the page shows Enable, press it, the first start takes about a minute.

Zones

A zone is a domain name, for example internal, corp or staging.example.com. Inside your networks the zone answers only with the records you add. Names that are not in the zone do not resolve.

A zone with the same name as a public domain replaces it inside your networks. Add example.com as a private zone, and your servers no longer see the public records of example.com. The zone page tells you when the name also exists in public DNS.

These names are reserved and cannot be a zone.

• serverscamp.com and its subdomains
• db.internal and its subdomains, used by the platform

Records

The record name is relative to the zone, so db in the zone internal is db.internal. Use @ or leave the name empty for the zone itself.

TTL is from 30 seconds to 1 day, 300 seconds by default. Changes usually reach the gateway within a minute. A server that already asked keeps the old answer until its TTL runs out.

Limits

An account can have 10 zones. Need more? Request an increase on the Limits page in the panel.

Zones belong to the router. Networks on another router have their own zones.