Plesk DNS Helper

Owned by HostBill
Last updated: Sept 20, 2019

Overview

Plesk DNS Helper is an extension shipped with Plesk module to help you connect your Plesk installations with one of the HostBill-supported DNS services:

  • Power DNS
  • Power DNS Slave Zones
  • OnApp DNS
  • cPanel DNS
  • ...or any other DNS HostBill supports

Why may I need this?

Plesk handles DNS really well, but it's more suited for single-install deployments (as each install comes with its own DNS server). There is a Plesk Multiserver extension, but if you feel it's not right for you and you plan to deploy multiple Plesk instances you'd most likely want to manage single DNS server (master) rather than multiple ones. 

Or maybe you want to hook up your PowerDNS to store slave zones, while your Plesk would keep master zone records.

This is where our Plesk/HostBill DNS helper kicks in.

How it works?

  • In your Plesk installations you setup DNS templates to use your actual master nameserver (i.e. Plesk, Power DNS, cPanel DNS)
  • You install our Plesk extension and point it to your HostBill install
  • Any time new zone is created / updated / deleted in Plesk, our extension notifies HostBill about it
  • HostBill then "decides" what to do next. It can:
    • Push this zone to real master nameserver
    • Notify secondary nameserver to create/update slave zone
    • After exporting such zone, HostBill can assign it to the related customer 

So you can have:

  • Slave DNS (any supported by HostBill) notified automatically about new zones in Plesk, or:
  • Plesk DNS will not be used to handle DNS queries, but as a source of data for actual DNS server that handles requests.
    With this approach you can benefit from flexible & automated DNS templates built into Plesk on any central DNS server you wish to use with it.


Configuring HostBill DNS Helper in Plesk

To begin, you need to install Plesk Extension that is shipped with Plesk module for HostBill.

  1. Copy extension zip file from includes/modules/Hosting/plesk12/pleskmodule/dist directory of your HostBill installation. ie: hostbill-dns-1.0-1.zip to your plesk server

  2. Login to your plesk ssh, and install extension as instructed in https://docs.plesk.com/en-US/onyx/extensions-guide/extensions-management-utility.73617/ 

    Sample of extension install
    plesk bin extension -i /root/hostbill-dns-1.0-0.zip
  3. Once extension is installed, click "Go to extension" next to it:
  4. Configure connection to HostBill
    1. Select your Plesk master IP address (used by primary nameserver on Plesk)
    2. Enter URL to HostBill API endpoint (described in section below)
    3. Enter Secret to HostBill API (save it for later)
    4. In field Slave IPs to whitelist, enter comma separated list of IP addresses of your slave servers that should be added to Plesk DNS ACL.
      This is required if target DNS server (configured in HostBill, read below) you will be exporting zones to should be responsible for storing slave zones, while Plesk DNS will serve as storage for master zones.
    5. Submit with OK button

You can now verify connection to your HostBill by clicking Test Connection button. If connection succeeds, you should see following message:


Configuring Plesk module in HostBill

Make sure that any Plesk you will be synchronizing data from have configured connection in HostBill → Connect with app (read more about configuration in: Plesk ).

Especially ensure that following fields: 

  • IP address 
  • Secret for DNS tool
  • Primary nameserver IPs

are configured in your Plesk connection in HostBill.


Configuring Plesk DNS Tool in HostBill


  1. Find and activate Plesk DNS Tool plugin in your HostBill → Extras → Plugins
  2. Once activated proceed to Extras → Plugins → Plesk DNS Tool to configure the module
    1. Copy HostBill API endpoint URL to be used on Plesk extension configuration
    2. Select Target DNS server you wish zones coming from your Plesk installations should be hosted on

    3. If you'd like your clients to manage their DNS zones in HostBill DNS manager - tick "Try to assign synchronized zone to HostBill account"

      Warning

      This option should be used with caution, possibly only for PowerDNS Slave module. If you enable this option, client will "see" imported zone in DNS management section.

      If customer would then update anything directly on DNS server, his changes may later be overwritten by another synchronization made with Plesk DNS tool.

      It's best to have clients manage their DNS directly on Plesk or via HostBill client portal, using Plesk DNS management function


Resyncing zones from Plesk to HostBill

This operation can be used ie: when you've installed our Plesk extension, and have some zones you'd like to export / test. Calling it, will send all zones information to Plesk DNS Tool in HostBill.

To resync zones:

  • Proceed to Extensions → My Extensions in Plesk
  • Click Go to Extension next to HostBill DNS Helper
  • Click on Resync button
  • Confirm
  • After resync is ready, you should see following info:

Note about existing zones

If you use Resync option on Plesk server with many zones in DNS you may need to wait a little while for all zones to be synchronized. You can track progress of synchronization in HostBill → Extras→ Plugins→ Plesk DNS Tool → Synch Logs