DNS Servers

• DNS servers
  • Adding new server
• Server synchronization
• DNS zones
• Automatic DNS Actions (Plan-Based)
• DNS templates
  • Adding DNS zone template

DNS servers are a critical part of the internet infrastructure. Their main purpose is to translate human-friendly domain names (like www.example.com) into the unique numerical IP addresses (like 192.0.2.1) that computers and servers use to communicate with each other. DNS servers ensure that you can easily navigate the internet using domain names instead of having to remember and use complex IP addresses.

• A dedicated, owned PanelAlpha Engine
• An alternative to shared hosting environment based on Plesk, DirectAdmin or cPanel hosting servers

DNS servers

Server, Zones and Templates - these are the three sections dedicated to DNS servers. Check below for all details.

Servers - list of already existing DNS servers with precise information displayed on the first sight:

• Server ID number
• Server name
• Server type:
  • Bunny.net
  • Cloudflare
  • cPanel DNSOnly
  • PowerDNS
• Allowed actions on a DNS server:
  • Synchronize the server
  • Edit the server main details
  • Delete the server

Adding new server

Add DNS Server by pressing the button and filling in the short form:

• Provide the DNS server custom name
• Select type from available ones:
  • Bunny.net
  • PowerDNS
  • Cloudflare
  • cPanel DNSOnly

Depending on the selected server type, you will have to provide additional details to successfully connect. For illustration purposes, Bunny.net uses only an API Key. For more details on every server type, please refer to its dedicated documentation page.

Server synchronization

The DNS Server synchronization enables importing DNS zones into PanelAlpha. Please keep in mind that you can import DNS zones only for existing services with corresponding domains. Importing a DNS zone is not possible if a domain has not yet been created under a service.

DNS zones

After a successful server synchronization, imported zones will appear in the Zones tab. This section displays zones from external DNS servers only.

Automatic DNS Actions (Plan-Based)

DNS changes are handled automatically according to Plan configuration, not by one fixed global rule.

In practice, when PanelAlpha provisions a domain/subdomain for a service, DNS handling follows the plan DNS settings, including:

• creating a domain for a new instance,
• creating a domain for a staging instance,
• creating a new domain/subdomain during instance copy (for example copied-from-...).

The behavior depends on plan DNS options, for example:

• Create DNS Zone For Domain,
• Subdomain DNS Action (Create new DNS zone, Create A record on parent zone, or None),
• Onboarding/Quick subdomain DNS action (same action types as above),
• proxy settings for auto-created A/CNAME records (if supported by DNS provider, e.g. Cloudflare or Bunny.net).

Because of this, staging and copied instances do not always create a separate zone. If plan action is set to parent-zone records, only records are created in the parent zone. If action is set to None, no DNS records/zones are created automatically.

Cleanup behavior is also plan-based (auto-delete zones/records options).

DNS templates

Templates allow you to configure DNS records that will be automatically assigned to the zone on creation. To assign DNS template, you need to set it up for each plan.

Adding DNS zone template

Templates allow you to configure DNS records that will be automatically assigned to the zone on creation.

To assign a DNS template, you need to set it up for each plan.

• Provide a template name
• Add Records (supported types: a, AAAA, CNAME, TXT, MX, NS)
• You can also set whether a record should be 'Proxied'. If a DNS server has a Proxy feature like Cloudflare or Bunny.net, the record will have it enabled if checked.

Here you can find some examples of correct DNS records configuration:

Name	Type	TTL	RDATA
example.com.	A	60	208.93.64.253
example.com.	AAAA	3600	3001:0db7:3c5d:0024:0000:0000:1a2f:3c1b
example.com.	CAA	3600	0 issue "ca.example.net"
www.example.com.	CNAME	3600	example.com.
example.com.	MX	14400	10 onemail.example.com.
example.com.	NS	3600	ns1.example.com.
example.com.	PTR	3600	110.164.252.222
_sip._tcp.example.com.	SRV	3600	0 5 5060 sipserver.example.com.
example.com	TXT	1800	example-site-verification=H7um1gh346Cop5nd6613Fvs

Available variables - they retrieve information from the user's instance/service, based on them you can define a sample template that will be created on the DNS server after adding an instance, for example here Default Template, which is pre-installed automatically

• {$domain} - Full domain name, e.g. 'example.com'
• {$domainprefix} - Part of domain before first dot, e.g. 'example'
• {$domaincomplement} - Part of domain after first dot, e.g. 'com'
• {$ip} - Service IP address, e.g. '123.123.123.123'
• {$hostingserverhostname} - Hosting server hostname or IP address, e.g.: 'yhostingserver.com' or '12.23.34.45'
• {$dnsserverhostname} - DNS server hostname or IP address, e.g.: 'dnsserver.com' or '12.23.34.45'
• {$ns1},{$ns2},{$ns3},{$ns4},{$ns5} - Nameservers assigned to the service

For plans with a DNS template configured in DNS Servers, template records are applied automatically when domains are provisioned (for example during instance/staging creation and other domain provisioning flows).