Blockstack Zone Files JS

An RFC1035-compliant DNS zone file parser and generator for Node.js and the browser. Based on the dns-zonefile library by Elgs Qian Chen.

Installation

$ npm install blockstack-zones

Usage

Making Zone Files

var zoneFileText = makeZoneFile(zoneFileJson)

Parsing Zone Files

var zoneFileJson = parseZoneFile(zoneFileText)

Zone Information

dns-zonefile accepts both zone data expressed as a JSON object or plain text zone file. It supports SOA, NS, A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, PTR, SRV and TXT record types as well as the $ORIGIN keyword (for zone-wide use only). Each record type (and the $ORIGIN keyword) is optional, though bind expects to find at least an SOA record in a valid zone file.

Forward DNS Zone

The following JSON produces a zone file for a forward DNS zone:

{
    "$origin": "MYDOMAIN.COM.",
    "$ttl": 3600,
    "soa": {
        "mname": "NS1.NAMESERVER.NET.",
        "rname": "HOSTMASTER.MYDOMAIN.COM.",
        "serial": "{time}",
        "refresh": 3600,
        "retry": 600,
        "expire": 604800,
        "minimum": 86400
    },
    "ns": [
        { "host": "NS1.NAMESERVER.NET." },
        { "host": "NS2.NAMESERVER.NET." }
    ],
    "a": [
        { "name": "@", "ip": "127.0.0.1" },
        { "name": "www", "ip": "127.0.0.1" },
        { "name": "mail", "ip": "127.0.0.1" }
    ],
    "aaaa": [
        { "ip": "::1" },
        { "name": "mail", "ip": "2001:db8::1" }
    ],
    "cname":[
        { "name": "mail1", "alias": "mail" },
        { "name": "mail2", "alias": "mail" }
    ],
    "mx":[
        { "preference": 0, "host": "mail1" },
        { "preference": 10, "host": "mail2" }
    ],
    "txt":[
        { "name": "txt1", "txt": "hello" },
        { "name": "txt2", "txt": "world" }
    ],
    "srv":[
        { "name": "_xmpp-client._tcp", "target": "jabber", "priority": 10, "weight": 0, "port": 5222 },
        { "name": "_xmpp-server._tcp", "target": "jabber", "priority": 10, "weight": 0, "port": 5269 }
    ]
}

dns-zonefile will produce the following zone file from the above information, while the following zone file can as well be parsed to produce the zone file like above:

; Zone: MYDOMAIN.COM.
; Exported  (yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss.sssZ): 2014-09-22T21:10:36.697Z

$ORIGIN MYDOMAIN.COM.
$TTL 3600

; SOA Record
@	 		IN	SOA	NS1.NAMESERVER.NET.	HOSTMASTER.MYDOMAIN.COM.	(
			1411420237	 ;serial
			3600	 ;refresh
			600	 ;retry
			604800	 ;expire
			86400	 ;minimum ttl
)

; NS Records
@	IN	NS	NS1.NAMESERVER.NET.
@	IN	NS	NS2.NAMESERVER.NET.

; MX Records
@	IN	MX	0	mail1
@	IN	MX	10	mail2

; A Records
@	IN	A	127.0.0.1
www	IN	A	127.0.0.1
mail	IN	A	127.0.0.1

; AAAA Records
@	IN	AAAA	::1
mail	IN	AAAA	2001:db8::1

; CNAME Records
mail1	IN	CNAME	mail
mail2	IN	CNAME	mail

; TXT Records
txt1	IN	TXT	"hello"
txt2	IN	TXT	"world"

; SRV Records
_xmpp-client._tcp	IN	SRV	10	0	5222	jabber
_xmpp-server._tcp	IN	SRV	10	0	5269	jabber

Reverse DNS Zone

This JSON will produce a zone file for a reverse DNS zone (the $ORIGIN keyword is recommended for reverse DNS zones):

{
	"$origin": "0.168.192.IN-ADDR.ARPA.",
	"$ttl": 3600,
	"soa": {
		"mname": "NS1.NAMESERVER.NET.",
		"rname": "HOSTMASTER.MYDOMAIN.COM.",
		"serial": "{time}",
		"refresh": 3600,
		"retry": 600,
		"expire": 604800,
		"minimum": 86400
	},
  "ns": [
      { "host": "NS1.NAMESERVER.NET." },
      { "host": "NS2.NAMESERVER.NET." }
  ],
  "ptr":[
      { "name": 1, "host": "HOST1.MYDOMAIN.COM." },
      { "name": 2, "host": "HOST2.MYDOMAIN.COM." }
  ]
}

dns-zonefile will produce the following zone file from the above information, while the following zone file can as well be parsed to produce the zone file like above:

; Zone: 0.168.192.IN-ADDR.ARPA.
; Exported  (yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss.sssZ): 2014-09-22T21:10:36.698Z

$ORIGIN 0.168.192.IN-ADDR.ARPA.
$TTL 3600

; SOA Record
@	 		IN	SOA	NS1.NAMESERVER.NET.	HOSTMASTER.MYDOMAIN.COM.	(
			1411420237	 ;serial
			3600	 ;refresh
			600	 ;retry
			604800	 ;expire
			86400	 ;minimum ttl
)

; NS Records
@	IN	NS	NS1.NAMESERVER.NET.
@	IN	NS	NS2.NAMESERVER.NET.

; PTR Records
1	IN	PTR	HOST1.MYDOMAIN.COM.
2	IN	PTR	HOST2.MYDOMAIN.COM.

Standalone Usage

To use dns-zonefile to generate a zone file from JSON from the command line, place the desired JSON data in a file (zonefile_data.json in this example) and run the following command. Note that the resulting zone file will be printed to the console; to save the zone file to disk (my_zone.conf in this example), use redirection as in this example:

$ zonefile -g zonefile_data.json > my_zone.conf

To use dns-zonefile to parse a zone file to JSON from the command line, place the desired zone file data in a file (zonefile_data.txt in this example) and run the following command. Note that the resulting JSON will be printed to the console; to save the JSON to disk (my_zone.json in this example), use redirection as in this example:

$ zonefile -p zonefile_data.txt > my_zone.json

If the -g and -p are omitted, -g will be assumed if the lower cased filename contains .json, otherwise, -p will be assumed.

zonefile -v or zonefile --version will print the version information.

Module Usage

dns-zonefile can also be used as a module. Simply use require() to include it, then invoke its generate() function as shown in the following example:

var zonefile = require('dns-zonefile');
var options = require('./zonefile_forward.json');
var output = zonefile.generate(options);
console.log(output);

options can either be a parsed JSON object as shown above, or a regular Javascript object containing the same required fields.

It is also possible to parse a zone file to JSON by invoking its parse() function as shown in the following example:

var zonefile = require('dns-zonefile');
var text = fs.readFileSync('./zonefile_forward.txt', 'utf8');
output = zonefile.parse(text);
console.log(output);