By default, a Plesk server acts as a master DNS server for websites hosted on it. Alternatively, you can use external third-party DNS services to resolve domain names hosted in Plesk, for example, Amazon Route 53 (http://aws.amazon.com/route53/), DynECT (http://dyn.com/dns/dynect-managed-dns/), or Godaddy Premium DNS (http://www.godaddy.com/domains/dns-hosting.aspx). Using such services has certain advantages:

• Reduced load on your Plesk server.
• Improved DNS hosting reliability.

If you plan to use an external third-party DNS service, you can configure your Plesk so that it uses this service instead of its own DNS server. This will not affect website owners: From their perspective, Plesk stays a master DNS server for their domains.

To make your Plesk automatically provision DNS zones to a third-party DNS, you should write an integration script.

DNS Integration Script

The integration script is a script (written in any language supported by your server) that propagates changes made to DNS zones in Plesk UI to the selected third-party DNS service. The script should communicate with the external service by means of the service’s API.

After you register the script in Plesk, the latter will pass to the script information about any change in DNS zones, for example, adding or removing resource records or entire zones.

The script must meet the following requirements:

• It should be able to process the input parameters given in the table below.
• If the actions are completed successfully, the script should return errorcode0.
• If you want your script to write information about its execution to Plesk log files, send this information to the script’s stdout and sterr.

An example of the script that integrates Plesk with the Amazon Route 53 is available on our GitHub page.

Note that to use this script, you should take two steps:

• Download the library for working with Amazon Web Services in PHP - aws.phar from http://aws.amazon.com/sdkforphp/ and place it in the same directory with the script.
• Specify your Amazon security credentials in the script (lines 23 and 24):

'client' => array(
    'key' => '<key>',
    'secret' => '<secret>',
),

Integration Script Input Parameters

Integrating Plesk with a Third-Party DNS

To switch on Plesk integration with third-party DNS

1. Put your integration script into your extension’s /plib/scripts/ directory

   For example: /plib/scripts/route53.php

2. Make sure that your script can be executed successfully from command line

   On Linux: /usr/local/psa/bin/extension --exec <extension_id> <script_name>

   On Windows: <plesk_dir>\bin\extension.exe --exec <extension_id> <script_name>

   For example: /usr/local/psa/bin/extension --exec route53 route53.php

3. Set up the post-install.php script to register custom DNS backend

   On Linux: plesk bin server_dns --enable-custom-backend <script_execution>

   On Windows: <plesk_dir>\bin\server_dns.exe --enable-custom-backend <script_execution>

   For example:

   $script = '/usr/local/psa/bin/extension --exec route53 route53.php';
   $result = pm_ApiCli::call('server_dns', ['--enable-custom-backend', $script]);
   

To switch off Plesk integration with third-party DNS and restore the default settings

Set up the pre-uninstall.php script to disable custom DNS backend

On Linux: plesk bin server_dns --disable-custom-backend

On Windows: <plesk_dir>\bin\server_dns.exe --disable-custom-backend

For example: $result = pm_ApiCli::call('server_dns', ['--disable-custom-backend']);

You can find a complete example of the integration on github: https://github.com/plesk/ext-route53

Remarks

Verifying Successful DNS Zones’ Synchronization

Following the integration of Plesk DNS with an external DNS service, domains’ DNS zone records are synchronized with that service. The successful synchronization of a certain domain’s DNS zone adheres to the following:

1. The DNS zone for this domain is created at the external service.
2. All the domain’s DNS records are correctly copied to the external service.
3. In the extension UI, the domain is marked as synchronized with the external service.
4. The user receives a message that the DNS zone for the specified domain is now successfully synchronized with the external service.
5. If a certain DNS record is not supported by the external service, the user receives a message in the extension UI that this record is not supported by the external service.
6. If the entire DNS zone cannot be synchronized, the user receives an appropriate message in the extension UI.

Synchronization Specifics Related to Different Supported Domain Types

Plesk supports a wide variety of different types of domains. Some of these pose additional important considerations.

Domains Unavailable for Synchronization

Due to Plesk’s policies, the following domains’ DNS zones cannot be synchronized to an external service:

• domains with Disabled DNS zone
• domains with Slave DNS zone
• disabled domains
• suspended domains

Observing Service Limits

If the external DNS service enforces certain resource limits, the extension must not allow the user to execute a resource-consuming action when the corresponding limit is reached. An appropriate message must be displayed to the user in the extension UI.

Verifying Operations with Synchronized DNS Zones

The basic idea is to make sure that all the changes to the DNS settings done in Plesk are correctly propagated to the external service.

Choose a domain with its DNS zone synchronized with an external DNS service, and check the following.

Operations with DNS Zone

1. Switching DNS Zone from Master to Slave prevents synchronization. If a domain DNS zone has already been synchronized with the external service, switching it from Master to Slave changes nothing, the DNS zone records remain on the external service untouched. If a domain DNS zone has not yet been synchronized, once switched to Slave, it must be impossible to synchronize it.
2. Applying DNS Template must be correctly reflected. When a user applies DNS Template for an active DNS zone, DNS records must be correspondingly updated on the external service.
3. Resetting DNS settings must be correctly reflected. When a user resets DNS settings to defaults for an active DNS zone, its DNS records must be correspondingly updated on the external service.

Operations with DNS Records

1. Adding any type of DNS record in Plesk adds the record on the external service. Must work for all types of DNS records.
2. Editing a DNS record in Plesk changes the corresponding record on the external service.
3. Removing a DNS record in Plesk removes the corresponding record on the external service.

Operations with Domain

Make sure that changes to the domain’s hosting settings are reflected appropriately in the external DNS records.

1. Changing the domain name. When the name of the domain is changed, you can choose to either update the external service DNS records accordingly or to erase them completely. This change must be appropriately reflected in the Plesk extension UI.

2. Changing the domain’s IP address in Plesk causes updating the IP address in the external service DNS records.

3. Disabling a synchronized domain does NOT cause its DNS records to be erased from the external service.

   Note: If a domain is disabled before synchronizing with the external DNS service, it cannot be synchronized at all.

4. Suspending a synchronized domain does NOT cause its DNS records to be erased from the external service.

   Note: If a domain is suspended before synchronizing with the external DNS service, it cannot be synchronized at all.

5. Removing a domain in Plesk must cause all its DNS records to be removed from the external service.