How to Install nsedit on Ubuntu Server

In this tutorial, we will be walking you through the steps to install nsedit on an Ubuntu server. nsedit is an open-source tool that allows you to edit DNS records using a simple web interface, and it can be useful if you want to manage DNS records for multiple domains.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, you will need:

  • An Ubuntu server (version 18.04 or later)
  • sudo privileges on your server
  • Internet access

Step 1: Install Dependencies

Start by ensuring that your server is up-to-date by updating its package index and upgrading the existing packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Next, install the packages required to build nsedit by running the following command:

sudo apt install build-essential libssl-dev libexpat1-dev libperl-dev libpcre3-dev libssl-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev zlib1g-dev

Step 2: Install nsedit

Clone the nsedit repository from Github to your server:

git clone https://github.com/tuxis-ie/nsedit.git

Once you have cloned the repository, move into the newly created directory by running:

cd nsedit/

Now, we need to build nsedit using the provided Makefile. Run the following command:

sudo make

This will compile and install nsedit to /usr/local/bin/, which is the default location for binaries on Ubuntu.

Step 3: Configure nsedit

Before we can start using nsedit, we need to configure it with our DNS zone information. The configuration file for nsedit is located in /usr/local/etc/nsedit/.

Start by copying the sample configuration file to the configuration directory:

sudo cp sample-nsedit.yaml /usr/local/etc/nsedit/nsedit.yaml

Now open the configuration file using your favorite editor:

sudo nano /usr/local/etc/nsedit/nsedit.yaml

And configure the following parameters:

  • zonefile: This should be the absolute path to your DNS zone file.
  • bind_user: This is the user account under which BIND runs. The default is named.
  • bind_group: This is the group under which BIND runs. The default is named.
  • rndc_key: This is the shared secret that authenticates nsedit with BIND.

Once you have made the necessary changes, save and close the file.

Step 4: Start nsedit

Nsedit can be started using the following command:

sudo /usr/local/bin/nsedit -c /usr/local/etc/nsedit/nsedit.yaml

This will start nsedit on port 8080. You can now access it by navigating to http://your-server-ip:8080/ in your web browser.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have shown you how to install nsedit on Ubuntu server and configure it to manage DNS records. You can now use nsedit to manage DNS records for multiple domains quickly and easily.