Installation

I recommend that you use setup PowerDNS Admin before pdns, as PowerDNS Admin creates tables and indexes. When you have PowerDNS Admin running, you can change the pdns configuration to use it's database.

After you have installed PowerDNS Admin and any dependencies, you need to create a configuration file with info about database credentials and mail setup. See the Configuration WIKI page for an example.

Use the default administration account hostmaster / secret to login, and change the password.

PowerDNS

TODO: pdns database configuration.

Java Servlet Container

You need a Java Servlet Container, eg. Tomcat or Jetty, to run PowerDNS Admin. The Java Servlet Container usually listens on a non-standard port (eg. 8080) and only accept connections on the loopback interface. You would normally setup Apache or Nginx on port 80 (or with SSL) and proxy connections back to the Java Servlet Container.

Debian / Ubuntu

On Debian or Ubuntu installation is straight forward:

apt-get install jetty8
cp PowerDNS-admin-x.y.z.war /var/lib/jetty8/webapps/PowerDNS_Admin.war
service jetty8 restart

Nginx Proxy

Put something like the following within you're Nginx server { .... } declaration, asuming jetty or tomcat is listening on port 8080.

###
### PowerDNS Admin - Proxy connections to Jetty on 127.0.0.1:8080
###
location /PowerDNS_Admin {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/PowerDNS_Admin;
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
}

Upgrade

When you upgrade PowerDNS Admin, do a full database backup first. I recommend that you import the database-dump into a new database and temporary configure PowerDNS Admin to use this new database. Then upgrade the war file, restart the Java Servlet Container, and see if everything works. If nothing broke, you can configure PowerDNS Admin back to the primary database and restart the Java Servlet Container again.