Installing PDNS Gui on Arch Linux

PDNS Gui is a web-based graphical user interface for the PowerDNS DNS server. In this tutorial, we will go through the process of installing PDNS Gui on Arch Linux.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, you will need the following:

• A computer running Arch Linux.
• sudo privileges to install packages.
• Git installed to clone the repository.

Installation

1. Open the terminal of your Arch Linux computer.

2. Install the required dependencies:

sudo pacman -S python python-pip python-virtualenv uwsgi uwsgi-plugin-python nginx

3. Clone the PDNS Gui repository from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/odoucet/pdns-gui.git

4. Change the current directory to the cloned repository:

cd pdns-gui

5. Create a Python virtual environment for the PDNS Gui application:

virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3 venv

6. Activate the Python virtual environment:

source venv/bin/activate

7. Install the Python dependencies using pip:

pip install -r requirements.txt

8. Create a configuration file for the PDNS Gui application:

cp pdns_gui/settings.py.sample pdns_gui/settings.py

9. Edit the pdns_gui/settings.py file to configure the application. For example, you can change the database settings, the host and port on which the application will run, and the secret key.

10. Migrate the database schema using the following command:

python manage.py migrate

11. Collect the static files using the following command:

python manage.py collectstatic

12. Deactivate the virtual environment:

deactivate

13. Create a systemd service to automate the start of PDNS Gui:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/pdns-gui.service

14. Paste the following content into the service file:

[Unit]
Description=PDNS Gui
After=network.target

[Service]
User=<your-username>
Group=<your-group>
WorkingDirectory=/path/to/pdns-gui
Environment="PATH=/path/to/pdns-gui/venv/bin"
ExecStart=/usr/bin/uwsgi --ini /path/to/pdns-gui/pdns_gui/uwsgi.ini
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Replace <your-username> and <your-group> with the username and group of the user who will run the PDNS Gui application.

Replace /path/to/pdns-gui with the absolute path to the PDNS Gui repository.

15. Save and close the file.

16. Reload the systemd daemon:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

17. Enable the PDNS Gui service:

sudo systemctl enable pdns-gui

18. Start the PDNS Gui service:

sudo systemctl start pdns-gui

19. Verify that the service is running correctly:

sudo systemctl status pdns-gui

You should see a message indicating that the PDNS Gui service is active and running.

20. Configure the Nginx web server:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/pdns-gui

21. Paste the following content into the Nginx virtual host file:

server {
        listen 80;
        server_name example.com; # Replace with your domain name

        location / {
                proxy_pass http://localhost:8000; # Replace with the same port as in uwsgi.ini file
                proxy_set_header Host $host;
                proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        }
}

22. Save and close the file.

23. Create a symbolic link to the Nginx virtual host file in the sites-enabled directory:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pdns-gui /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

24. Test the Nginx configuration for syntax errors:

sudo nginx -t

25. If there are no syntax errors, restart the Nginx service:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

26. Access the PDNS Gui application by opening a web browser and visiting http://example.com (replace with your domain name).

Congratulations! You have successfully installed PDNS Gui on Arch Linux. We hope you found this tutorial helpful.

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