SecondDNS #1

Hi everyone!

I'm Ihor, founder of SecondDNS, a hosted secondary DNS service, and I built a CyberPanel plugin for it. Posting here because CyberPanel has a DNS quirk that makes generic "add a slave nameserver" tutorials silently fail.

The quirk. CyberPanel runs PowerDNS (not BIND), and every zone it creates is type NATIVE. NATIVE zones never send NOTIFY, so even if you point a secondary at the server, it will only learn about changes on its refresh timer — and most named.conf-based guides don't apply at all, because PowerDNS keeps zones in the cyberpanel MySQL database. Meanwhile the server is the only authoritative nameserver for every domain on it: a reboot for a kernel update, a DDoS, a disk problem — and all of them stop resolving, mail included.

What the plugin does. It hooks CyberPanel's domain create/delete workflow. For every new domain it:

  • switches the zone from NATIVE to MASTER, so PowerDNS sends NOTIFY on change;
  • normalises the SOA serial to YYYYMMDDnn;
  • sets allow-axfr-ips to the secondary's IP;
  • registers the zone with the secondary via API — the first AXFR happens within a minute.

Deleted domains are removed automatically. Domains that existed before the install: one seconddns sync. Nothing to maintain by hand afterwards.

Install (as root; the installer verifies the API key, detects IPv4/IPv6 and configures PowerDNS):

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/seconddns/dns_integrations/main/hosting-panels/cyberpanel/install.sh | bash -s -- --api-key=YOUR_API_KEY

One thing everyone misses: AXFR runs over TCP 53, not UDP — open it for the secondary's IP first: ufw allow from SECONDARY_IP to any port 53 proto tcp.

Full guide with verification steps and troubleshooting: https://seconddns.com/docs/guides/cyberpanel-secondary-dns
The plugin and installer are open source: https://github.com/seconddns/dns_integrations

Pricing. 90-day free trial, then from €3/month for 20 zones; the Pro plan is €12/month for 400 zones.

For the CyberPanel community: code CYBERPANEL gives 30% off the first year of the Pro plan, valid until 1 December 2026.

Happy to answer anything about PowerDNS, SOA timers, TSIG, or why registrars insist on two nameservers in different networks.