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Dynamic DNS

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Objective

DNS names for VMs in EGI Federated cloud are recently required by many VOs requirements  , however, current support for DNS resolution at site level is inadequate and fragmented.

The aim of this task is to provide united, federation-wide Dynamic DNS support for VMs in EGI Federated Clouds. Users can register their chosen meaningful and memorable DNS host names in given domains (e.g. my-server.vo-name.egi.eu) and assign to public IPs of their servers hosted in EGI Federated Cloud. By using Dynamic DNS, users can host services in EGI Federated Cloud with their meaningful service names, can freely move VMs from sites to sites without modifying server/client configurations (federated approach), can request valid server certificates in advance (critical for security)and many other advantages.

A short presentation of the task is available here

A short tutorial how to use the service is available here


How to use EGI FedCloud Dynamic DNS service

Using EGI FedCloud Dynamic DNS service is very simple and intuitive via GUI portal. Just go to https://nsupdate.fedcloud.eu and follow the menu in the portal. Concretely:

  • Dynamic DNS service uses EGI CheckIn for authentication. If you have not EGI account, please register via https://sso.egi.eu/admin/
  • Log into Dynamic DNS service portal using EGI account via menu "Login" and click on "egi" button
  • Use "Overview" -> "Add host" to register a new hostname in an available domain. Choose a hostname in an available domain and click on "Create"
  • You can edit/update/delete your registered hostnames in the "Overview" menu and click on the hostname


FAQ

  • NS-update server uses HTTPS protocol, hostname/secret are encrypted as data and not visible during transfer so it is secure to use the URL
  • If you get an error message when logging into NS-update server via EGI CheckIn, your browser may have expired token. Try open this link https://aai-dev.egi.eu/oidc/saml/login in your browser to refresh the token or restart your browser
  • DNS server set Time-to-Live (max time for caching DNS records) to 1 min for dynamic DNS, but MS Windows seems to not respect that. You can clear DNS cache in Windows with “ipconfig /flushdns” command with Administrator account





Participants

Developer

  • Viet Tran (IISAS) viet.tran _at_ savba.sk


Advisory board

  • Enol Fernández
  • Peter Solagna
  • Vincenzo Spinoso
  • Boris Parak
  • Jerome Pansanel

Requirements

  • Basic functionalities
    • Web-based GUI interfaces for registering DNS hostnames for EGI users (done)
    • DNS server with Dynamic DNS support for forward DNS resolution (done)
    • Command-line clients for assigning registered hostnames to IPs (done)
  • Advanced functionalities
    • Using EGI Checkin services (authentication done, authorization ongoing)
    • Command-line client for registering DNS hostnames (next period)
  • Not compulsory but desired functionalities
    • Support for reverse DNS resolution (long term)

Used technologies

  • Backend: BIND9 DNS server with configuration for updating DNS names via RFC 2136
  • Frontend: nsupdate.info portal for registering and managing DNS names/domains
  • Clients: Wide support of common dynamic DNS clients like ddclient, inadyn, or just curl

Current status

  • A testing domain fedcloud.eu has been registered for testing and development (without touching production domains like egi.eu)
  • DNS servers are installed and configured for fedcloud.eu domain
  • Portal is installed on configured https://nsupdate.fedcloud.eu/
  • Users can register themselves and log in portal, can register DNS names within fedcloud.eu domain and assign to VMs
  • Authentication via EGI CheckIn service is supported

Ongoing work

  • Authorization via VO memberships
  • Command-line clients for registering domains

Next steps

  • Transfer to egi.eu domain
  • Production