DNS Cluster for Web Hosts
Done Right
ZoneCloud enables DNS clustering on mixed hosting environments
while smoothly providing a web interface controller into the mix.
Supported Operating Systems and Panels
ZoneCloud enables mixed web hosting environments to use a central DNS Cluster. Ideal for companies using more than one web hosting panel like cPanel, DirectAdmin, Virtualmin, Plesk, InterWorx etc and no panel at all. Also supports multiple OS. Cloudlinux, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu and FreeBSD included.
ZoneCloud is the very first panel agnostic and distribution independent (clustering DNS zones on Bind level so it’s panel and OS agnostic), solution with the added option for users to add multiple clusters on the same controller for better efficiency. – It consists of three parts:
- ZoneCloud Controller receives DNS records from your cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, Centos, Debian, Ubuntu LTS and FreeBSD servers and pushes DNS records to DNS servers
- ZoneCloud Agent pushes the DNS zones of the web servers to the controller. These can be cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin servers or servers without panel. Debian, Ubuntu LTS, FreeBSD and Centos/CloudLinux/EL supported.
- ZoneCloud Node is responsible of serving the DNS zones. Nodes are DNS servers to which the Controller Server pushes zone records. Centos 7 and 8 supported. Debian and Ubuntu LTS too.
Features
ZoneCloud is a complete DNS Clustering solution which offers secured and flexible way of automated zone transfer between multiple servers across the Internet.
Panel and OS independent. Cluster any mix of cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, Virtualmin, Centos Web Panel, ISPManager Servers together or just bare metal servers without any hosting panel.
- Multiple Clusters on the same controller
- Easily transfer accounts / domains from one server to another without downtime
- Exclude domains from cluster / server
- Duplicate domains protection
- Logging Facility (On controller and local syslog)
- Low Bandwidth Consumption
- Security focused. TLS communication. IP & Token authentication.
- No limit on Agent or Nodes servers
- Easy setup (RPM and DEB packages) and easy to use config file
- Variable Polling time.
Why use a DNS Cluster
Balance DNS Resources
DNS cluster is a group of name servers that share records with each other. It allows physically separate nameservers to handle domain name requests from web servers.
In the event of, a power outage, web server failure, etc, currently you still have DNS functionality. In this way, visitors can easily get websites on your server more quickly after the web server comes back online.
No “NX DOMAIN” errors, no waiting for TTL (Time To Live) or Refresh times or whatsoever. Except that, someone may wonder if there is only one server then it’s useless. But still, missing the DNS records if the server is offline you will also miss any mail that will try to find your mail server. With a DNS cluster you can avoid that.
Zonecloud DNS Cluster Benefits
Avoid Downtime
Easy Transfers
Faster Responses
Global Setup
Multi OS Support
No downtime due to DNS service failures. Avoid data and e-mail loss due to DNS outages. No more waiting for DNS propagation or waiting changing nameservers on Domains.
Easy transfers between servers. No need to change TTL or nameservers in Domains. Just exclude the domain you want to transfer from the Controller from the old server and it will automatically sync.
Distribute and Deploy DNS servers to reduce latency and share the load among multiple DNS Servers across the Globe. Multiple clusters supported on the same Controller.
One Central Point of Management. Manage everything from Zonecloud Controller. No need for separate nameservers for every web server.
Forget hacks and scripts. Zonecloud runs everywhere. Native app for CentOS – CloudLinux – RHEL 6, 7 and 8. Debian, Ubuntu LTS and FreebSD also supported.
Frequently Asked Questions
Zonecloud allows you to combine web servers with different web hosting panels in the same DNS Cluster making it Ideal for companies that use more than one Hosting panels or no panel at all.
No more hacks, scripts, crons and DNS problems.
Zonecloud works on Bind level and it consists of 3 programs. Zonecloud Agent, Node and the Controller.
No complex scripts or panel plugins. Agent parses the zones from the webservers and sends them to the Zonecloud Controller.
Controller distributes the zones to the corresponding DNS servers (Zonecloud Nodes).
Zonecloud can work with any system that works with ISC Bind 9.
No matter if you use cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, ISPConfig, InterWorx, or any other panel.
Binaries available for Centos / RHEL / Cloudlinux 6, 7 and 8.
Debian 9 and 10 and Ubuntu 18.04 also supported. FreeBSD too.
Of course there is. Zonecloud Controller. You can see statistics, zone count, alive servers, zones per server and also control them, exclude zones for easy transfers between servers and so on.
Controller needs PHP, Apache httpd and MySQL. For security reasons we recommend a small cloud/vps server, but no restrictions though, it can also be used as Node (serving zones).
Agents and Nodes are using an adjustable interval (e.g. 60/90/120/x seconds) configurable in conf file. Every x seconds are seeking information/changes/inserts/deletes from the Controller.
So no open ports for Node/Agent. They only seek 443 (outbound) port of Controller.
Controller from the other side, answers only to IP addresses of Nodes/Agents.
Of course you need port 53 open for notifies/requests of all Bind servers (53 in/out).
Controller will transfer/allow the creation of the first zone that it will see. If it sees a “nixpal.com” on Server1 that doesn’t exists anywhere, it will transfer it to the slaves and will report “zone nixpal.com { … masters {server A}; }; .
If it sees -for example- a second “nixpal.com” zone in Server2 it will ignore it and notify controller.
Of course you can exclude a zone for testing or rapid transferring from a server A, to server B.
If you exclude “nixpal.com” from server “A”, it will change the master to server “B” in the Nodes.
Exclude is useful for transfers between servers, you can exclude multiple domains, and then transfer them.
Interested in testing
Zonecloud?
Create an order and use "FREETRIAL" Promotion Code
30 Days Money Back Guarantee. Deploy ZoneCloud in Minutes.