Also included in the PDNS distribution is the PipeBackend. The PipeBackend is primarily meant for allowing rapid development of new backends without tight integration with PowerDNS. It allows end-users to write PDNS backends in any language. A perl sample is provided. The PipeBackend is also very well suited for dynamic resolution of queries. Example applications include DNS based loadbalancing, geo-direction, DNS based failover with low TTLs.
The Pipe Backend also has a separate chapter in the backends appendix, see the Section called PipeBackend in Appendix A.
Note: The Pipe Backend currently does not function under FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x, probably due to unfavorable interactions between its threading implementation and the fork system call.
Interestingly, the Linux PowerDNS binary running under the Linuxulator on FreeBSD does work.
Included with the PDNS distribution is the example.pl backend which has knowledge of the example.com zone, just like the BindBackend. To install both, add the following to your pdns.conf:
launch=pipe,bind bind-example-zones pipe-command=location/of/backend.pl |
webserver.example.com A records pointing to 1.2.3.4, 1.2.3.5, 1.2.3.6
www.example.com CNAME pointing to webserver.example.com
MBOXFW (mailbox forward) records pointing to powerdns@example.com. See the smtpredir documentation for information about MBOXFW.