Nectar DNS Service

The Nectar DNS Service allows users to add Domain Name System (DNS) services to their Nectar Research Cloud projects. 

For a full tutorial on how to use this service, click here.

Nectar provided zone

For new projects and projects with allocations being renewed, a Nectar provided DNS zone will be created automatically for your project to use. The zone name will be based on your given project name, and will be available for you to create records in right away.

Bring your own zone

The Nectar DNS service can act as your domains DNS servers, however we are not a DNS registrar. See https://dnsmadeeasyblog.medium.com/domain-registrar-or-dns-hosting-the-difference-explained-891c2dcb592a and https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/domain-names/domain-names-registrar-transfer-versus-nameserver-change for some background information about the difference.
To get started, you can add your DNS domain to the DNS service by creating a zone within your Nectar Research cloud project; either by using the dashboard, or the CLI.

Once you have a zone created for your project, you are free to create and delete any records you wish within this zone.

If you do choose to host your domain with us, you will need to set the Nameserver records of your domain to:

• ns1.rc.nectar.org.au (115.146.81.148)
• ns2.rc.nectar.org.au (115.146.83.81)

for the entries to resolve properly.

Using the Nectar DNS Service

Once you have a zone available to you in the Nectar DNS server (either a Nectar provided one, or a bring-your-own), you can create records for your hosts.

To use the service, we offer a few methods; through the Nectar Research Cloud Dashboard, command line interface, the Python bindings or interacting with the API directly. You will require your Nectar OpenStack password if you're not using the Dashboard.

NOTE: The Nectar DNS service supports Designate API v2 only

Dashboard

To add a record from the Dashboard, choose the DNS and then Zones link from the left. Click the Create Record Set button adjacent to the zone you wish to use.

Follow the instructions to provide the necessary values for your record, and choose the Submit button to complete.

Command Line Interface (CLI)

To use the CLI to access the DNS service, you will need the OpenStack client and python-designate packages installed on your system.

Once installed, you can use the CLI documentation reference from here: https://docs.openstack.org/python-designateclient/latest/user/shell-v2.html

Python bindings

The python-designateclient package provides the Python bindings required to interact with the Nectar DNS service though the Python programming language.

Please see the Python bindings reference material at https://docs.openstack.org/python-designateclient/latest/user/bindings.html

API reference

If you would like to interact with the HTTP REST API directly, you can find the supported API calls documented at https://developer.openstack.org/api-ref/dns/