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Version: 1.3.0

DNS setup

During Epinio installation, a "system" domain must be specified specified (global.domain helm value). This is used to access Epinio API server and to create default routes for the deployed applications. This page describes how to prepare the domain.

This domain must be a wildcard domain, meaning any subdomain should resolve to the same IP address as the domain itself. That IP address, should target your cluster's Ingress controller (e.g. Traefik)


Epinio will install successfully even if your DNS setup is not complete. There is an exception to this, when letsencrypt issuer is used. Cert-Manager will fail to create certificates until the domain is accessible, due to the challenges that must be solved (read more about issuers here). Even in that case though, after you finish your DNS setup, the challenges will be solved and Epinio should become functional but it may take a while before things balance out.


To keep things simple, it is preferable that you finish your DNS setup before you install Epinio. To do so, you need to point your desired domain to the IP address of your Ingress controller. There are two steps in this process:

  1. Find the IP address of the ingress controller
  2. Setup your DNS

NOTE: For development or demo environments, an easy magic DNS setup can be used instead.

Ingress controller IP address​

Most Kubernetes clusters are running a "load balancer" service which is responsible of assigning IP addresses to load balanced services created on the cluster. Ingress controllers are such services (e.g. Traefik) and they should have an externally accessible IP address. This is needed for any Ingress resource to work. You can find the load balancer IP address of any service using kubectl. E.g.

kubectl get svc -n kube-system traefik -o jsonpath={@.status.loadBalancer.ingress}

Depending on the load balancer, the result of this command may have different fields populated, most usually ip. Keep this information available for the next step where you will configure your DNS.

Configure your DNS​

Given you own the domain "example.com", you would configure a subdomain e.g. "test.example.com" for Epinio. Now you will have to configure your DNS in a way, that any request towards "test.example.com" will resolve to the address found in the previous step.

  • test.example.com => "INGRESS-IP"
  • *.test.example.com => "INGRESS-IP"

The "wildcard" entry is what makes the automatic routes for applications to work in Epinio. Don't skip it.​

Find DNS Configuration Examples below.

DNS Configuration Examples​

AWS EKS and Route53​

As an example we will use the AWS Service Route53 to create a wildcard domain within one of your existing "Hosted zones", e.g. example.com.

Given Epinio ingress installation provided you with the following hostname:

Traefik Ingress info: [{"hostname":"abcdefg12345671234567abcdefg1234-1234567890.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com"}]

Now you will have to add two CNAME records, for the subdomain, e.g. "test" to have "test.example.com", resp. "*.test.example.com". Replace "abcdefg12345671234567abcdefg1234-1234567890.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com" with the your EKS FQDN, and "test.example.com" with your custom domain.

test.example.com​
Record name: test
Record type: CNAME - Routes traffic to another domain name and some AWS resources
Value: abcdefg12345671234567abcdefg1234-1234567890.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com
*.test.example.com​
Record name: *.test
Record type: CNAME - Routes traffic to another domain name and some AWS resources
Value: abcdefg12345671234567abcdefg1234-1234567890.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com

Finally, running

> host test.example.com, or even

> host epinio.test.example.com

should resolve to e.g. "abcdefg12345671234567abcdefg1234-1234567890.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com".

Azure AKS and "example-domain"​

As an example we will use the Azure resource group "example-domain", with the zone "example.com".

Given Epinio ingress installation provided you with the following hostname:

Traefik Ingress info: [{"ip":"10.0.0.1"}]

Now you will have to add two A records, for the subdomain, e.g. "test" to have "test.example.com", resp. "*.test.example.com" to the DNS zone "example.com". Replace "10.0.0.1" with the IP from "Traefik Ingress info", and "test.example.com" with your custom domain.

test.example.com​
Record name: test.example.com
Record type: A
IP address: 10.0.0.1
*.test.example.com​
Record name: *.test.example.com
Record type: A
IP address: 10.0.0.1

Finally, running

> host test.example.com, or even

> host epinio.test.example.com

should resolve to e.g. "10.0.0.1".

Bind DNS​

Given Epinio ingress installation provided you with the following hostname:

Traefik Ingress info: [{"ip":"10.0.0.1"}]

Now you will have to add two A records, for the subdomain, e.g. "test" to have "test.example.com", resp. "*.test.example.com" to e.g. "/var/lib/named/master/forward/example.com". Replace "10.0.0.1" with the IP from "Traefik Ingress info", and "test.example.com" with your custom domain.

$ORIGIN example.com.
test A 10.0.0.1
$ORIGIN test.example.com.
* A 10.0.0.1

Restart bind and verify that e.g. > host test.example.com or > host epinio.test.example.com will resolve to "10.0.0.1".