Create DNS records

This document guides you through creating DNS records to manage how traffic reaches your applications and services within Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) air-gapped. DNS records let you map a domain name to a specific resource so that you can give users access to an application, manage service aliases, verify ownership, enable reverse lookup, or route email. The intended audience for this document is platform administrators and application operators responsible for managing DNS records within a project.

After you have created your DNS zone, you can create different types of DNS records to point your domain names and subdomains to your services. You can create the following DNS record types in GDC:

• Address (A) record: maps a domain name to one or more IPv4 addresses. This record is the most fundamental record type for pointing a domain to a server.
• Canonical Name (CNAME) record: creates an alias of one domain name to another canonical (authoritative) domain name. This record type is useful for redirecting traffic or simplifying DNS management.
• Text (TXT) record: lets you associate arbitrary text with a domain name. These records are often used for verification purposes or to store information like Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records for email authentication.
• Pointer (PTR) record: maps an IP address back to a domain name, also known as reverse DNS lookup. This record is often used for email server reputation and logging analysis.
• Mail Exchanger (MX) record: specifies the mail servers responsible for accepting email for a domain. This is essential for setting up email services.

GDC doesn't support setting Name Server (NS) or Start of Authority (SOA) records for a domain.

Before you begin

To create DNS records in GDC, you must have the following:

• An existing public or private DNS zone. For more information, see Create DNS zones.
• The necessary identity and access roles. To manage DNS records for your project, ask your Project IAM Admin to grant you the Managed DNS Project Admin (managed-dns-project-admin) role.
• A kubeconfig file for the global API server. If you have not yet generated this file, see Sign in. For more information, see Global and zonal API servers.

Create a DNS record

• Create and apply a ResourceRecordSet resource to create a DNS record within an existing managed DNS zone:

  kubectl --kubeconfig GLOBAL_API_SERVER apply -f - <<EOF
  apiVersion: networking.global.gdc.goog/v1
  kind: ResourceRecordSet
  metadata:
    name: RESOURCE_RECORD_NAME
    namespace: PROJECT_NAMESPACE
  spec:
    name:  RESOURCE_RECORD_FQDN
    ttlSeconds: TIME_TO_LIVE
    type: RR_TYPE
    rrData:
    - RECORD_DATA
    dnsZone: DNS_ZONE_NAME
  EOF
  

  Replace the following:

  • GLOBAL_API_SERVER: the path to the global API server's kubeconfig file. If you have not yet generated this file, see Sign in.
  • PROJECT_NAMESPACE: the namespace of your project.
  • RESOURCE_RECORD_NAME: your chosen unique name for this ResourceRecordSetresource within the namespace, such as cname.system.example.com
  • RESOURCE_RECORD_FQDN: the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the record, such as another.ai.system.example.com.
  • TIME_TO_LIVE: the time to live (TTL) in seconds for this record. This field is optional. The default value is 300.
  • RR_TYPE:the type of this ResourceRecordSet. The options are: A, CNAME, TXT, PTR, and MX

  • RECORD_DATA: the data for all resource records in the RRset. Each entry represents a separate resource record. Here are some examples depending on the record type:

    • A record: the IP address this A record points to:

    type: A
    rrData:
    - 10.6.7.8
    

    • CNAME record: the target domain name for this CNAME record:

    type: CNAME
    rrData:
    - "ai.system.example.com"
    

    • TXT record: the text data for this TXT record:

    type: TXT
    rrData:
    - "Example text"
    

    • PTR record: the domain name this PTR record points to, for reverse DNS lookup of an IP address:

    type: PTR
    rrData:
    - "8.7.6.10.in-addr.arpa."
    

    • MX record: the priority and the hostname of the mail server:

    type: MX
    rrData:
    - "10 mail.example.com."
    

  • DNS_ZONE_NAME: the name of the ManagedDNSZone custom resource where this record is added. For more information, see Create DNS zones.