This document is about PowerDNS 4.0. For other versions, please see the documentation index.

Compiling PowerDNS

PowerDNS can be compiled with modules built in, or with modules designed to be loaded at runtime. All that is configured before compiling using the well known autoconf/automake system.

PowerDNS requires 'Boost' to compile, it is available for most operating systems. Otherwise, see the Boost website.

To compile in modules, specify them as --with-modules='mod1 mod2 mod3', substituting the desired module names. Each backend has a module name that you look up in this table.

To compile a module for inclusion at runtime, which is great if you are a unix vendor, use --with-dynmodules='mod1 mod2 mod3'. These modules then end up as .so files in the compiled libdir.

By default, the bind, mysql and random are compiled into the binary. The pipe is, by default, compiled as a runtime loadable module.

Getting the sources

There are 3 ways of getting the source. If you want the bleeding edge, you can clone the repository at GitHub and run ./bootstrap in the clone.

You can also download snapshot tarballs generated by Jenkins and can be found here.

You can also download releases on the website. These releases are PGP-signed with key-id FBAE 0323 821C 7706 A5CA 151B DCF5 13FA 7EED 19F3, 1628 90D0 689D D12D D33E 4696 1C5E E990 D2E7 1575 or B76C D467 1C09 68BA A87D E61C 5E50 715B F2FF E1A7.

OS specific gotcha's

AIX

It is unknown if PowerDNS compiles on AIX.

FreeBSD

Works fine, but use gmake.

The FreeBSD Boost include files are installed in /usr/local/include, so prefix CXXFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include to your ./configure invocation.

Linux

Linux is probably the best supported platform as most of the main coders are Linux users.

Mac OS X

The installation from Homebrew for the authoritative server should work, event though not all commits are tested on OS X.

The recursor has been reported to crash for some OS X users.

OpenBSD 5.8

Compiles, but use gmake and g++-4.9.3 or higher.

Solaris

Solaris 8 and 9 work fine. The 'Sunpro' compiler has not been tried but is reported to be lacking large parts of the Standard Template Library, which PowerDNS relies on heavily. Use gcc and gmake (if available). Regular Solaris make has some issues with some PowerDNS Makefile constructs.

When compiling, make sure that you have /usr/ccs/bin in your path. Furthermore, with some versions of MySQL, you may have to add LDFLAGS=-lz before ./configure.

OpenIndiana

Compiles on OpenIndiana Hipster with developer/gcc-49. Other required packages are: