1. What is PowerAdmin

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PowerAdmin is a non commercial front-end for the PowerDNS (www.powerdns.com) nameserver.

The goal of PowerAdmin is to manage the (MySQL) database behind PowerDNS, which contains

the DNS records.

There have been some changes in this release, both of major and minor importance.

Please read the following document to familiarize yourself with them. You are also

requested to report any bugs should you encounter them.

2. Where to get PowerAdmin

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The main location of PowerAdmin is http://www.poweradmin.org

3. Notes

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3.1 Migrating

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If you are running a stone-age version of PowerAdmin read the following information!

Due to some major changes in this release the current version of PowerAdmin

supports gmysql backend. You are strongly advised to backup your data before running the

migrator.php tool in your poweradmin directory. This is to protect you against any data

loss should anything go wrong. We assume it all works properly, but due to a limited

number of betatesters we cannot guarantee our tool is 100% bug free.

!! Please be sure you have a working backup of your data !! 

Do the following to migrate: 

- rename the file migrator.php-pa in your webdir to migrator.php.

- Go here to migrate it.

It is recommended to synchronize your database aswell after the update

3.2 DB Information

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For now on PowerAdmin supports PowerDNS' MySQL back-end only. If there is demand for other

database layers support will be added in the near future. Of course, since the code is opensource,

everyone who cannot wait is encouraged to plug in their own database layer (and if you dare, send the 

code to us so we can evaluate it and maybe integrate it with the current PowerAdmin).

We are still busy with PostGreSQL, but the experience needs a bit more tweaking for us.

Time will release it, we cannot yet.

By using PEAR::DB we are bound to have some way to keep track of indexes. This is done by using seperate

tables called users_seq and zones_seq. Also records_seq will be there. This means that if you manually

insert a record, chances are 90% that you will have corrupted workings of PowerAdmin (because the ID is

not in order.) The problem can be solved by running the Synchronize Database tool (select it or use the

seq_update.php url). This will let you resynch your indexes. It is also useful if you are migrating

from 1.0 to 1.1 or higher.

Read more about this in README-Sequence

4. Documentation

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PowerAdmin has the following core features:

- User Level dependant editing of domains. For example an administrator

  can edit all domains, while a user can for example only edit the domain(s)

  owned by him/her.

- Simple administration of users that can access PowerAdmin.

- Easy creating of domains. Next of that, the proper assignment of rights

  is simply and done within a few clicks.

- Ability to apply a record-template when creating domains. For now, the template

  can only be configured in the config file, but this will be moved to a nice

  database-table soon.

- Editting records in existing zones.

5. Installation

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!! If you are updating, you should necessarily read paragraph 3 !!

What you need:

- PowerDNS (Duh!) (Versions 2.1 through 2.6 have been tested, others might work aswell)

  http://www.powerdns.com/

- MySQL

  http://www.mysql.com/

- An (Apache) webserver that supports php4 and php4-mysql. The PHP version must be at least 4.2.1.

  http://www.apache.org/

  http://www.php.net/

First of all, install PowerDNS with it's MySQL Generic back-end.

Next to the MySQL user you created for PowerDNS, you need a MySQL user for PowerAdmin that can do

the following actions on the PowerDNS database you created: SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE, CREATE.

Untar/gzip poweradmin-VERSION.tar.gz in your webdir. This will create a directory called

poweradmin-VERSION.

In the 'inc' subdirectory of your newly created directory, you'll find a file called

config-block.inc.php. Edit this file to suit your environment. Then rename it to

config.inc.php to be able to load the site. The website will not work properly without a config,

so pay attention to your configuration!

Next, go to http://www.yourdomain.com/poweradmin-VERSION/install.php

Fill in the required information to make an administrator login for your

PowerAdmin. If all goes well, the user is made, and you can log in using that username.

WARNING! Be sure to remove install.php from the webdir!

After you are done, run http://www.yourdomain.com/poweradmin-VERSION/test_setup.php to see if

everything is set up well.

This test also includes the functionality testing of your PowerDNS records (whether you

have read/write access or not)

6. User levels explained

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User levels explained:

[x] = yes

[ ] = no

User        Permission to           Permission to           Permission to           Permission to

Level       change own              change other            create domains          add/modify

            domain(s)               domain(s)                                       users

 1               [x]                     [ ]                     [ ]                     [ ]

 5               [x]                     [x]                     [x]                     [ ]

 10              [x]                     [x]                     [x]                     [x]

7. Further Info && Bugs

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The latest contact information can always be found at http://www.poweradmin.org .

8. Links and more information

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http://www.poweradmin.org   Our main site

http://www.powerdns.com		PowerDNS

http://www.ietf.org		Information about DNS

http://poweradmin.sf.net	PowerAdmin @ SourceForge

http://www.apache.org/          The Apache Webserver

http://www.php.net/             PHP programming language

http://www.mysql.com/           MySQL database server

9. Changes

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Changes for this version are:

- Many many many bug fixes!

- Enhanced sequence updater that is now smarter.

- SOA Fields fixed.

- Automatically SOA serial updating after each change in the DNS.

- MASTER/SLAVE Functionality but that stays untested at the moment of writing. 

  Use the toggles with care, see the config-block.inc.php for more information.

- Search abilities added thanks to DeViCeD

- A lot of other stuff and minor details not worth mentioning that much.

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Enjoy!

There are some major changes, we would like feedback!

See paragraph 7 for contact information.

Regards,

The PowerAdmin Team