I recently introduced you to the PowerDNS REST API and wished that somebody would build a really good Web-based front-end for PowerDNS with it. Henk Jan reminded me of nsedit which I’d simply forgotten about.

It’s worth having a look at nsedit, created by Mark Schouten. It consists of a bit of PHP I just drop on a Web server somewhere. On first invocation it creates a small SQLite database in which it stores users and zone associations, but all other operations are directed at the PowerDNS REST API and operate directly on the latter’s back-end database.

The user interface is clean and modern-looking. It was created to “finally replace PowerAdmin” and take editing of DNS zones to modern times. It can import master zone files and create native, master, and slave zones. We can create, edit, and delete records, but careful: due to the way the PowerDNS API currently works, it is possible to insert “ugly” data into the back-end. I hope this issue will be soon solved by our friends at PowerDNS.

If you’re tired of PowerAdmin’s insufficiencies, as I know many are, have a look at nsedit.