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getdns API

getdns is a modern asynchronous DNS API intended to make all types of DNS information easily available as described by Paul Hoffman. This implementation is licensed under the New BSD License (BSD-new).

The getdns-api mailing list is a good place to engage in discussions regarding the design of the API.

If you are just getting started with the library take a look at the section below that describes building and handling external dependencies for the library. Once it is built you should take a look at src/examples to see how the library is used.

This file captures the goals and direction of the project and the current state of the implementation.

The goals of this implementation of the getdns API are:

  • Provide an open source implementation, in C, of the formally described getdns API by Paul Hoffman at http://www.vpnc.org/getdns-api/
  • Initial support for FreeBSD, OSX, Linux (CentOS/RHEL, Ubuntu) via functional "configure" script
  • Initial support to include the Android platform
  • Include examples and tests as part of the build
  • Document code using doxygen
  • Leverage github as much as possible for project coordination
  • Coding style/standards follow the BSD coding style ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-current/src/share/misc/style

Non-goals (things we will not be doing at least initially) include:

  • implementation of the traditional DNS related routines (gethostbyname, etc.)

Language Bindings

In parallel, the team is actively developing bindings for various languages. For more information, visit the wiki.

Motivation for providing the API

The developers are of the opinion that DNSSEC offers a unique global infrastructure for establishing and enhancing cryptographic trust relations. With the development of this API we intend to offer application developers a modern and flexible way that enables end-to-end trust in the DNS architecture and will inspire application developers towards innovative security solutions in their applications.

Releases

Release numbering follows the Semantic Versioning approach. The code is currently under active development.

The following requirements were met as conditions for the present release:

  • code compiles cleanly on at least the primary target platforms: RHEL/CentOS 6.3 Linux, FreeBSD 9.2
  • examples must compile and be clean
  • clearly document supported/unsupported elements of the API

Tickets/Bug Reports

Tickets and bug reports should be reported via the GitHub issues list.

Additionally, we have a mailing list at users@getdns.net.

Building/External Dependencies

External dependencies are linked outside the getdns API build tree (we rely on configure to find them). We would like to keep the dependency tree short.

You have to install the library and also the library-devel (or -dev) for your package management system to install the compile time files. If you checked out our git; the configure script is built with autoreconf --install.

Extensions / Event loop dependencies

The implementation works with a variety of event loops, each built as a separate shared library. See the wiki for more details.

  • libevent. Note: the examples require this and should work with either libevent 1.x or 2.x. 2.x is preferred.
  • libuv
  • libev

##Regression Tests

A suite of regression tests are included with the library, if you make changes or just want to sanity check things on your system take a look at src/test. You will need to install libcheck. Check is also available from many of the package repositories for the more popular operating systems.

DNSSEC

For the library to be DNSSEC capable, it needs to know the root trust anchor. The library will try to load the root trust anchor from /etc/unbound/getdns-root.key by default. This file is expected to have one or more DS or DNSKEY resource records in presentation (i.e. zone file) format. Note that this is different than the format of BIND.keys.

The best way to setup or update the root trust anchor is by using unbound-anchor. To setup the library with the root trust anchor at the default location, execute the following steps as root:

# mkdir -p /etc/unbound
# unbound-anchor -a /etc/unbound/getdns-root.key

#Unsupported Features

The following API calls are documented in getDNS but not supported by the implementation at this time:

  • Support for OPT Records in getdns_general and variants via the extensions parameter.
  • EDNS options
    • getdns_context_set_edns_do_bit
    • getdns_context_set_edns_version
    • getdns_context_set_edns_extended_rcode
  • GETDNS_CONTEXT_TCP_ONLY_KEEP_CONNECTIONS_OPEN with getdns_context_set_dns_transport
  • DNS Search suffixes / local file support
    • getdns_context_set_append_name
    • getdns_context_set_suffix
  • Setting root servers via getdns_context_set_dns_root_servers
  • getdns_context_set_dnssec_trust_anchors
  • Detecting changes to resolv.conf and hosts
  • MDNS and NetBIOS namespaces (only DNS and LOCALFILES are supported)

Some platform specific features are not implemented in the first public release of getdns, however they are on the radar. These include:

  • Respecting settings in /etc/nsswitch.conf (linux and some other OSes), for the first release we simply check local files (/etc/hosts) before checking the DNS.
  • Search suffixes specified in /etc/resolv.conf

#Known Issues

There are a few known issues which we have summarized below - the most recent and helpful list is being maintained in the git issues list in the repository.

  • (#113) Changing the resolution type between stub and recursive after a query has been issued with a context will not work - the previous resolution type will continue to be used. If you want to change the resolution type you will need to create a new context and set the resolution type for that context.

#Supported Platforms

The primary platforms targeted are Linux and FreeBSD, other platform are supported as we get time. The names listed here are intended to help ensure that we catch platform specific breakage, not to limit the work that folks are doing.

  • Debian 7.0, 7.3
  • FreeBSD 8.4, 9.2, 10.0
  • RHEL/CentOS 6.4, 6.5
  • OSX 10.8, 10.9
  • Ubuntu 12.04, 13.10

For most platforms where we have provided a binary distribution as a compressed tar you can simply untar the file and run "make install". Bear in mind that any dependencies will need to be resolved before you can get the library to do it's work.

In some cases we have provided binaries that use the native packaging for the platform, where possible dependencies are identified using the method specific to the platform.

We intend to add MS-Windows, Android and other platforms to the releases as we have time to port it.

##Build Reports

Build Status

###FreeBSD

If you're using FreeBSD, you may install getdns via the ports tree by running: cd /usr/ports/dns/getdns && make install clean

###CentOS/RHEL 6.5

We rely on the most excellent package manager fpm to build the linux packages which means that the packaging platform requires ruby 2.1.0. There are other ways to build the packages, this is simplythe one we chose to use.

# cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS release 6.5 (Final)
# uname -a
Linux host-10-1-1-6 2.6.32-358.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Feb 22 00:31:26 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# cd getdns-0.1.0
# ./configure --prefix=/home/deploy/build
# make; make install
# cd /home/deploy/build
# mv lib lib64
# . /usr/local/rvm/config/alias
# fpm -x "*.la" -a native -s dir -t rpm -n getdns -v 0.1.0 -d "unbound" -d "ldns" -d "libevent" -d "libidn" --prefix /usr --vendor "Verisign Inc., NLnet Labs" --license "BSD New" --url "http://www.getdnsapi.net" --description "Modern asynchronous API to the DNS" .

###OSX

# sw_vers
ProductName:	Mac OS X
ProductVersion:	10.8.5
BuildVersion:	12F45

Built using PackageMaker.

Homebrew

If you're using Homebrew, you may run brew install getdns.

Contributors

  • Craig Despeaux, Verisign, Inc.
  • Neel Goyal, Verisign, Inc.
  • Olaf Kolkman, NLnet Labs
  • Allison Mankin, Verisign, Inc. - Verisign Labs.
  • Melinda Shore, No Mountain Software LLC
  • Willem Toorop, NLnet Labs
  • Wouter Wijngaards, NLnet Labs
  • Glen Wiley, Verisign, Inc.

Acknowledgements

The development team explicitly acknowledges Paul Hoffman for his initiative and efforts to develop a consensus based DNS API. We would like to thank the participants of the mailing list for their contributions.