cli53 - Command line script to administer the Amazon Route 53 dns service

Introduction

The latest Amazon service Route 53 is a great addition, but only has a rudimentary set of tools available at the time of release. This script fills that gap until things have caught up.

Features:

• create hosted zones

• delete hosted zones

• list hosted zones

• import to BIND format

• export to BIND format

• create resource records

• delete resource records

• works with BIND format zone files we all know and love - no need to edit <ChangeResourceRecordSetsRequest> XML!

Getting Started

Create a hosted zone:

$ bin/cli53 create example.com

Check what we've done:

$ bin/cli53 list

Import a BIND zone file:

$ bin/cli53 import example.com --file zonefile.txt

Replace with an imported zone, waiting for completion:

$ bin/cli53 import example.com --file zonefile.txt --replace --wait

Manually create some records:

$ bin/cli53 rrcreate example.com www A 192.168.0.1 --ttl 3600
$ bin/cli53 rrcreate example.com www A 192.168.0.2 --ttl 3600 --replace
$ bin/cli53 rrcreate example.com '' MX '10 192.168.0.1' '20 192.168.0.2'

Export as a BIND zone file (useful for checking):

$ bin/cli53 export example.com

Further documentation is available, e.g.:

$ bin/cli53 --help
$ bin/cli53 rrcreate --help

Installation

Buildout Install

Buildout will download all the dependencies needed in order to run cli53.

$ python bootstrap.py
$ bin/buildout

Once the dependencies downloaded, run cli53

$ bin/cli53

If the step bin/buildout fails with the cryptic error message 'pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: distribute', then you might try bootstrap.py with distribute instead of setuptools:

$ python bootstrap.py --distribute
$ bin/buildout

You need to set your Amazon credentials in the environment as AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY or configure them in ~/.boto. For more information see: http://code.google.com/p/boto/wiki/BotoConfig

Caveats

As Amazon limits operations to a maximum of 100 changes, if you perform a large operation that changes over 100 resource records it will be split. An operation that involves deletes, followed by updates such as an import with --replace will very briefly leave the domain inconsistent. You have been warned!