PowerDNS Authoritative Server on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

PowerDNS Authoritative Server is a high performance open source authoritative DNS server developed by PowerDNS.COM BV. It hosts the DNS zones for your own domains and publishes your records to the internet. This cloudimg image runs PowerDNS Authoritative Server 5.1 from the official PowerDNS packages on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, against a MariaDB database backend, with the REST API and DNSSEC tooling ready to use.

PowerDNS stores its zones and records in a relational database, so you manage DNS with SQL, the pdnsutil command line tool, or the built in REST API rather than editing flat zone files by hand. The REST API is the same interface used by web control panels and automation tools, so you can create zones, add records and rotate DNSSEC keys programmatically. DNSSEC signing is built in and can be enabled per zone with a single command.

Security is built in. No default or shared credentials ship in the image: on first boot every VM generates a unique REST API key and a unique database password, writes them to a root only file, and provisions a demonstration zone so DNS answers immediately. The REST API and status webserver are bound to loopback only, so the management surface is never exposed to the network while DNS itself answers on port 53 across all interfaces. This is an authoritative server, not a recursive resolver, so it cannot be abused as an open DNS amplifier.

PowerDNS Authoritative Server is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2 with an OpenSSL linking exception, free and open source with no per CPU or per deployment fee. cloudimg is not affiliated with or endorsed by PowerDNS.COM BV; PowerDNS is a mark of its owner. cloudimg provides packaging, the MariaDB backend integration, per instance credential automation, security patching, and 24/7 support with a guaranteed 24 hour response SLA.