DNS
Public & Private DNS
A public zone for your account with automatic names for new servers, and private zones inside your networks.
What DNS is
DNS turns a name into an address. With names your apps connect to db.internal and your team to web-1, and nobody copies IP addresses around.
Every account gets two zones. The public one on tentnode.com, for example k7m2qx.tentnode.com, works from anywhere on the internet. The private one, k7m2qx.internal, works only inside your networks and over VPN Gateway. A new server gets a name in both.
Why ours
Names without work
A new server gets its name from its VM name. web-1 becomes web-1.k7m2qx.tentnode.com and web-1.k7m2qx.internal, and the names are removed when the server is deleted.
Names follow the server
A name points to one of your servers, there is no field to type an address. Move a floating IP to another server and its names move with it.
Short names inside
Servers and VPN devices get k7m2qx.internal as their search domain, so ping web-1 works from another server or from your laptop on VPN.
Reverse DNS in the same place
The Reverse DNS tab lists every public address of your account. Set the name each one resolves back to, mail servers check it.
Private zones
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.
A zone holds A, AAAA and CNAME records. TTL is from 30 seconds to a day, and changes usually reach the gateway within a minute.
A zone with the same name as a public domain replaces it inside your networks. The zone page tells you when the name also exists in public DNS.
The public zone
Add a name like www and pick the server it opens. By default the name gets all public addresses of the server, IPv4 and IPv6 together. A * name answers for any name under the zone that you did not add yourself.
TTL is 60 seconds, so a change reaches the internet within a minute.
TXT records are there for domain verification and for certificates over DNS, like the _acme-challenge name of Let's Encrypt.
How to start
- Create a server. It gets its names in both zones.
- Open Public DNS in the Cloud Panel to add names like www, a wildcard or TXT records.
- Open Private DNS to add zones of your own, like internal.
Example usage
# k7m2qx stands for your account zone
# public name, from anywhere
dig +short web-1.k7m2qx.tentnode.com
# private names, from a server or a VPN device
dig +short web-1.k7m2qx.internal
dig +short db.internal
ping web-1Questions
Can I use my own domain?
Your public zone is on tentnode.com. For your own domain, point its records at your servers at your DNS provider. Inside your networks any domain can be a private zone, for example staging.example.com.
Why can I not add an MX record?
tentnode.com does not send mail, so mail records cannot be added. For mail use your own domain.
How many names can I have?
An account can have 50 names in its public zone and 10 private zones, the account zone is not counted. Request more on the Limits page in the Cloud Panel.
A server does not see the private zones. Why?
A server with its own DNS settings, for example a fixed nameserver in /etc/resolv.conf, does not ask the gateway. A server that was running before the gateway was turned on picks it up when it renews its DHCP lease or after a reboot.
What if the gateway is down?
Servers get a public resolver as their second DNS server, so the internet keeps working.
Does DNS cost extra?
No. Public and Private DNS are free.