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CoreDNS is a DNS server that started as a fork of [Caddy](https://github.com/mholt/caddy/). It has
the same model: it chains plugins.

CoreDNS is a [Cloud Native Computing Foundation](https://cncf.io) inception level project.

CoreDNS is the successor to [SkyDNS](https://github.com/skynetservices/skydns). SkyDNS is a thin
layer that exposes services in etcd in the DNS. CoreDNS builds on this idea and is a generic DNS
server that can talk to multiple backends (etcd, kubernetes, etc.).

CoreDNS aims to be a fast and flexible DNS server. The keyword here is *flexible*: with CoreDNS you
are able to do what you want with your DNS data. And if not: write a plugin!

CoreDNS can listen for DNS request coming in over UDP/TCP (go'old DNS), TLS ([RFC
7858](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7858)) and gRPC (not a standard).

Currently CoreDNS is able to:

* Serve zone data from a file; both DNSSEC (NSEC only) and DNS are supported (*file*).
* Retrieve zone data from primaries, i.e., act as a secondary server (AXFR only) (*secondary*).
* Sign zone data on-the-fly (*dnssec*).
* Load balancing of responses (*loadbalance*).
* Allow for zone transfers, i.e., act as a primary server (*file*).
* Automatically load zone files from disk (*auto*).
* Caching (*cache*).
* Health checking endpoint (*health*).
* Use etcd as a backend, i.e., a 101.5% replacement for
  [SkyDNS](https://github.com/skynetservices/skydns) (*etcd*).
* Use k8s (kubernetes) as a backend (*kubernetes*).
* Serve as a proxy to forward queries to some other (recursive) nameserver (*proxy*).
* Provide metrics (by using Prometheus) (*metrics*).
* Provide query (*log*) and error (*error*) logging.
* Support the CH class: `version.bind` and friends (*chaos*).
* Profiling support (*pprof*).
* Rewrite queries (qtype, qclass and qname) (*rewrite*).
* Echo back the IP address, transport and port number used (*whoami*).

Each of the plugins has a README.md of its own.

## Status

CoreDNS can be used as an authoritative nameserver for your domains. All in all, CoreDNS should be
able to provide you with enough functionality to replace parts of BIND 9, Knot, NSD or PowerDNS and
SkyDNS. Most documentation is in the source and blog articles can be [found
here](https://coredns.io). If you do want to use CoreDNS in production, please let us know.

## Compilation

CoreDNS (as a servertype plugin for Caddy) has a dependency on Caddy, but this is not different than
any other Go dependency. If you have the source of CoreDNS checked out in the appropriate place in
your `GOPATH`, get all dependencies:

    go get ./...

(You can do the checkout and dependency resolution as a single step with: `go get github.com/coredns/coredns`.)

And then `go build` as you would normally do:

    go build

This should yield a `coredns` binary.

## Compilation with Docker

CoreDNS requires Go to compile. However, if you already have docker installed and prefer not to setup
a Go environment, you could build coredns easily:

```
$ docker run --rm -i -t -v $PWD:/go/src/github.com/coredns/coredns \
      -w /go/src/github.com/coredns/coredns golang:1.9 make
```

The above command alone will have `coredns` binary generated.

## Examples

When starting CoreDNS without any configuration, it loads the `whoami` plugin and starts
listening on port 53 (override with `-dns.port`), it should show the following:

~~~ txt
.:53
2016/09/18 09:20:50 [INFO] CoreDNS-001
CoreDNS-001
~~~

Any query send to port 53 should return some information; your sending address, port and protocol
used.

If you have a Corefile without a port number specified it will, by default, use port 53, but you
can override the port with the `-dns.port` flag:

`./coredns -dns.port 1053`, runs the server on port 1053.

Start a simple proxy, you'll need to be root to start listening on port 53.

`Corefile` contains:

~~~ txt
.:53 {
    proxy . 8.8.8.8:53
    log
}
~~~

Just start CoreDNS: `./coredns`. Then just query on that port (53). The query should be forwarded to
8.8.8.8 and the response will be returned. Each query should also show up in the log.

Serve the (NSEC) DNSSEC-signed `example.org` on port 1053, with errors and logging sent to stdout.
Allow zone transfers to everybody, but specifically mention 1 IP address so that CoreDNS can send
notifies to it.

~~~ txt
example.org:1053 {
    file /var/lib/coredns/example.org.signed {
        transfer to *
        transfer to 2001:500:8f::53
    }
    errors
    log
}
~~~

Serve `example.org` on port 1053, but forward everything that does *not* match `example.org` to a recursive
nameserver *and* rewrite ANY queries to HINFO.

~~~ txt
.:1053 {
    rewrite ANY HINFO
    proxy . 8.8.8.8:53

    file /var/lib/coredns/example.org.signed example.org {
        transfer to *
        transfer to 2001:500:8f::53
    }
    errors
    log
}
~~~

IP addresses are also allowed. They are automatically converted to reverse zones:

~~~ txt
10.0.0.0/24 {
    # ...
}
~~~
Means you are authoritative for `0.0.10.in-addr.arpa.`.

The netmask must be dividable by 8, if it is not the reverse conversion is not done. This also works
for IPv6 addresses. If for some reason you want to serve a zone named `10.0.0.0/24` add the closing
dot: `10.0.0.0/24.` as this also stops the conversion.

Listening on TLS and for gRPC? Use:

~~~ txt
tls://example.org grpc://example.org {
    # ...
}
~~~

Specifying ports works in the same way:

~~~ txt
grpc://example.org:1443 {
    # ...
}
~~~

When no transport protocol is specified the default `dns://` is assumed.

## Community

- Website: <https://coredns.io>
- Blog: <https://blog.coredns.io>
- Twitter: [@corednsio](https://twitter.com/corednsio)
- Github: <https://github.com/coredns/coredns>
- Mailing list/group: <coredns-discuss@googlegroups.com>
- Slack: #coredns on <https://slack.cncf.io>

## Deployment

Examples for deployment via systemd and other use cases can be found in the
[deployment repository](https://github.com/coredns/deployment).
