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:

tar xf pdns-VERSION.tar.bz2
cd pdns-VERSION
./configure --with-modules=$MODULES --with-dynmodules=$DYNMODULES
make
make install

To compile in modules, specify them as --with-modules='mod1 mod2 mod3', substituting the desired module names. See each backend specific documentation for the 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 modules 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 autoreconf -vi in the clone.

You can also download snapshot tarballs.

You can also download releases on the website. These releases are PGP-signed with one of these key-ids:

• FBAE 0323 821C 7706 A5CA 151B DCF5 13FA 7EED 19F3
• D630 0CAB CBF4 69BB E392 E503 A208 ED4F 8AF5 8446
• 16E1 2866 B773 8C73 976A 5743 6FFC 3343 9B0D 04DF
• 990C 3D0E AC7C 275D C6B1 8436 EACA B90B 1963 EC2B

There is a PGP keyblock with these keys available on https://doc.powerdns.com/powerdns-keyblock.asc.

Older releases (4.3.x and earlier) can also be signed with one of the following keys:

• 1628 90D0 689D D12D D33E 4696 1C5E E990 D2E7 1575
• B76C D467 1C09 68BA A87D E61C 5E50 715B F2FF E1A7

Dependencies

To build the PowerDNS Authoritative Server, a C++ compiler with support for C++ 2011 is required. This means gcc 4.9 and newer and clang 3.5 and newer. Furthermore, the Makefiles require GNU make, not BSD make.

By default, the PowerDNS Authoritative Server requires the following libraries and headers:

• Boost 1.54 or newer
• OpenSSL

To build from a Git repository clone, the following dependencies are also required:

• ragel
• bison
• flex
• Python 3.6 or newer, with the ‘venv’ package

Optional dependencies

Several options that can be passed to ./configure can enable and disable different features. These will require additional dependencies

ed25519 support with libsodium

The PowerDNS Authoritative Server can link with libsodium to support ed25519 (DNSSEC algorithm 15). To detect libsodium, use the --with-libsodium configure option.

ed25519 and ed448 support with libdecaf

libdecaf is a library that allows the PowerDNS Authoritative Server to support ed25519 and Ed448 (DNSSEC algorithms 15 and 16). To detect libdecaf, use the --with-libdecaf configure option.

systemd notify support

During configure, configure will attempt to detect the availability of systemd or systemd-daemon headers. To force the use of systemd (and failing configure if the headers do not exist), use --enable-systemd. To set the directory where the unit files should be installed, use --with-systemd=/path/to/unit/dir.