PowerDNS-Admin vs DNS-UI

PowerDNS-Admin/DNS-UI:
A direct comparison
Konstantinos Kouris (konkour@gunet.gr)
Konstantinos Mparmparousis (barbarousisk@gunet.gr)
Dimitris Papachristou (dimitrispa@gunet.gr)
August 2021

Introduction/Background
0.
We, a team composed of two Software Developers and a Dev-
Ops Engineer, in the past few months have been conducting
research upon the functionalities of the application “PowerDNS-
Admin”, and have integrated some new useful features for our
cause into the app, like pull requests #974, #980 and #1002.
As someone with experience in the field can tell, our team was
mostly concentrated on the identity management and identity
security aspect, while also having a basic understanding of the
DNS-Related functionalities the app has to offer.
Consequently, part of our research was also to directly contrast
PowerDNS-Admin with one of it’s biggest “rivaling” projects,
DNS-UI.
During the upcoming presentation we will attempt, as
objectively as possible, to convey the finer details of each
application and to depict where the 2 projects mainly
differentiate, using the knowledge we have acquired.

Sections
0.
Project Details User Interface DNS Related User Management Conclusion

Project Details
1.
• Project Engagement
• Project Structure
• Web Stacks

Project Engagement
1.
MetricsApplications
Contributors 92 17
Forks 440 53
Commits from last year 36 2
Commits from start of project 952 184
No. Of releases 5 11
Last major feature release 13/10/2020 26/04/2018
No. of Open/closed PRs 27/276 6/58
No. of Closed PRs in 2021 24 2
1st release date 08/02/2017 07/09/2018
Ldap related issues/commits 102/45 6/28
Wiki pages 18 2

Web Stacks
1.
✓Flask Project.
✓Bootstrap.
✓Jquery.
✓SQLAlchemy (Python SQL
toolkit).
✓Bootstrap.
✓Jquery.
✓PDO_PGSQL (enables access
from PHP to PostgreSQL
databases).
✓PEST (client library for RESTful
web services).

User Interface
1.
• Differing features
2.

Differing features
2.
✓Zones are groupped by reversed
Internet domain name (.com, .en,
.gr).
✓Connection with PowerDNS
server only established during
app installation via conf files.
✓Changelogs about zone
modifications.
✓Application activity per distinct
User tracking.
✓Pagination and alphanumerical
sorting
✓No logout Button
✓PDNS Connection template
✓PDNS Statistics & Configuration
✓Global search
✓Application History JSON
formatted logs

PDA : PDNS Connection template.
2.
❑ Instead of configuring the connection during installation, PDA requires
you to establish a connection to a PoweDNS Authoritative server via it’s
interface, which is also easily configurable if changes are needed
afterwards.

PDA : PDNS Statistics & Configuration.
2.
❑ PDA also provides an outlet for several informative
statistics regarding the PowerDNS Authoritative server.

PDA : Global Search
2.
❑ The global search option provides the possibility for users
to search either for a domain by name, for a rrset record’s
information, or for a comment on a specific record.

PDA : Application History JSON formatted
logs (1)
2.
❑ PowerDNS-Admin monitors and presents in a JSON format
every event that takes place while it is operating, including
domain updates and logging users.

PDA : Application History JSON formatted
logs (2)
2.

DNS-UI : Changelogs about zone
modifications
2.
❑ DNS-UI displays the changes made to a zone in comparison to
the original state of the zone, including record’s additions,
deletions and modifications.

DNS-UI : Application activity per distinct
User tracking.
2.
❑ DNS-UI retains a complete list with every activity a user has
made on the application, such as adding/deleting a
zone/record, posting a comment, etc.

DNS Related
1.
2.
3.
• Differing options/features

Differing options/features
2.
✓Wide selection of dns record
settings.
✓Option for Auto PTR creation.
✓Slave Domain type available as
an option.
✓Configurable Serial number per
zone.
✓Multiple Record Templates,
including SOA/Nameserver.
✓Zone import/export.
✓Option for Auto PTR reverse
records creation in .conf file.
✓Matching Records split into a
new zone.
✓SOA/Nameserver Templates.
3.

PDA : Wide selection of dns record
settings
2.
4.
3.
❑ PowerDNS-Admin offers a wide variety of record type
settings, which can be toggled on and be available for
selection when creating or editing a record.

PDA : Option for Auto PTR creation (1)
2.
4.
3.
❑ As mentioned above, this option allows automatic reverse
pointer creation when records are updated.

PDA : Option for Auto PTR creation (2)
2.
4.
3.

DNS-UI : Zone import/export
2.
4.
3.
❑ DNS-UI is able to either export or import zones packaged
in bind9 format, providing an outlet of interaction with
other PowerDNS servers.

DNS-UI : Subdomains can split into a new
zone
2.
4.
3.
❑ DNS-UI utilizes a tool that allows you to split subdomains
found in the rrset of a zone to a completely new zone.

User Management
1.
2.
3.
4.
• Authentication Providers
• Roles
• Domain Associations
• LDAP Role Management

1.
2.
4. Authentication Providers
✓Local DB authentication.
✓LDAP.
✓Github Oauth.
✓Azure Oauth.
✓OpenID Oauth.
✓SAML (non-UI configurable).
✓Local DB authentication.
✓Authentications can also be
managed by a LDAP server, who is
cached and gets updated following
a predetermined time frame.

1.
2.
4. Authentication Providers

1.
2.
4. Roles
✓Roles are partitioned to:
I. Administrators.
(allowed to access and manage
everything)
II. Operators.
(unable to manage some app
settings)
III. Users.
(Zone management)
✓ Roles are partitioned to:
I. Administrators.
(allowed to access and manage everything)
II. Users.
(Zone management as zone admin or zone
Operator)
✓ Zone specific role management:
I. Zone Administrator.
(PDA-User equivalent regarding zone
modifications)
II. Zone Operator.
(request zone modifications to be approved by
an Administrator)

PDA : Administrators, Operators and Users
2.
4.
❑ Administrators: They are able to use every functionality on PDA, modify any
setting they wish, and also manage Users, Accounts and Domains.
❑ Operators: They have the same rights as an Administrator, except for the access
to PDA’s “PDNS” & “Authentication” settings.
❑ Users: They can modify a rrset of a domain they were given access to, and maybe
even create a new domain, if the corresponding setting allowing users to create
domains is toggled on.

DNS-UI : Administrators and Users
2.
4.
❑ Administrators: They are able to create or edit a new zone, have
access to every setting available, to create or edit a User and also
define a User’s access per zone. However, zone deletions require
confirmation from another Administrator.
❑ Users: Depending on which role they are appointed in a specific
zone, they can either be zone Administrators or zone Operators.

DNS-UI : Zone Administrators and Zone
Operators
2.
4.
As mentioned above:
❑ Zone Administrators: Can directly edit any rrset records in the zone.
❑ Zone Operators: Can request changes to any records in the zone, while
waiting for approval either from a zone Administrator or a DNS-UI
Administrator.

1.
2.
4. Domain/Zones Associations
✓Domains can either:
I. Be independent.
II. Belong to an Account.
✓ Users can be registered to both
Accounts and Domains.
✓ Option for Users to create a
Domain from scratch for their
Accounts.
✓Zones can either:
I. Be independent.
II. Belong to a Classification.
✓ Users can only be registered to
their corresponding zones as
Admins or Operators.
✓ Users must contact the
Administrator to create a zone.

PDA : Domains & Accounts
2.
4.
❑ Accounts associate several domains with one another. Users
registered to these accounts have full access to every
domain included.

DNS-UI : Zones & Classifications
2.
4.
❑ Classifications groupify zones together. Opera intended for
this to be a field that distinguishes internal zones (that
should only be synced out to the internal resolvers) and
public zones (that should be synced to all resolvers and the
public nameservers). In actuality it consists of data coming
from the “Account” model in PowerDNS.

1.
2.
4. LDAP Role Management
✓User Roles can be defined by
which LDAP Group they are placed
in.
✓User Roles & Associations can
also be provisioned by an Attribute
found in their LDAP Object.
✓User Roles are defined by which
configured LDAP Group
(ldap_groups_cn) they are placed in.

DNS-UI/PDA : LDAP Groups
2.
4.
❑ Based on which ldap group each user is a part of, DNS-UI
and PDA can determine their role in the application, more
specifically whether he is a DNS-UI Administrator/User or
PDA Administrator/Operator/User respectively.

PDA : LDAP Entitlements Provisioning
2.
4.
❑ Based on a LDAP attribute on the user’s object, PDA can
provision a user’s roles and associations, giving them access
to Domains and Accounts, or even changing their PDA-Role.

PDA : Entitlements Provisioning
2.
4.
In the previous slide we showcase the LDAP counterpart.
However, provisioning the roles of a user based on an attribute
in his object can theoretically be implemented across the range
of most authentication providers for PDA, as we mention here.
Also as mentioned, this practice would be very beneficial for
larger organizations that already have many active applications
involving their users.
That way, they are able to monitor every application and user
available, by simply adding a corresponding record from each
application to the user's object.
Our team at the time of writing is currently working on
implementing said feature upon the OpenID Connect Protocol.

PowerDNS-Admin/DNS-UI
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
We strongly consider both applications to be noteworthy candidates for
a PowerDNS Authoritative Server Web GUI.
Furthermore, we feel like DNS-UI would be better suited for teams and
projects that wish to focus strictly on the DNS-Related side of things,
perhaps somewhat being indifferent to the User’s Role-Management
and the User Interface aspect, while PowerDNS-Admin can be
considered as more of an all-around package. To elaborate, a project
with a plethora of domains and distinct users would be better suited
and managed by PowerDNS-Admin.
Having said that, the key difference of the DNS-UI Zone Operator role
(requests for zone updates) not existing in PowerDNS-Admin ,would
certainly tip the scale towards DNS-UI’s way for projects that require
sensitive handling of operations to their domains/zones.
Last but not least, we have noticed a higher engagement and
interaction rate overall in the PowerDNS-Admin github repository,
comparing to the one of DNS-UI.

PowerDNS-Admin vs DNS-UI

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