Featured Domains Amazon AWS Route 53 DNS management for subdomains !

eva2000 · Sep 25, 2014

I just came across this in Amazon AWS documentation for Route 53 DNS management services they offer - the ability to use Amazon Route 53 DNS management only for subdomains of your domain while keeping the parent domain on your primary DNS nameservers/management provider !

I use DNSMadeEasy for my important primary domains however their GeoDNS Global Traffic Director option costs an extra US$660/yr per domain which is too expensive for me. So with this I can test out subdomains on my domain using Amazon Route 53 for GeoDNS based queries!

What is Amazon Route 53 ?

Amazon Route 53 is a scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service. It provides secure and reliable routing to your infrastructure that uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) products, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Elastic Load Balancing, or Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). You can also use Amazon Route 53 to route users to your infrastructure outside of AWS.

Amazon Route 53 is an authoritative DNS service, meaning it translates friendly domains names like Example Domain into IP addresses like 192.0.2.1. Amazon Route 53 responds to DNS queries using a global network of authoritative DNS servers, which reduces latency. For a list of the locations of Amazon Route 53 DNS servers, see The Amazon Route 53 Global Network on the Amazon Route 53 detail page.

You can manage your DNS records through the Amazon Route 53 console or the Amazon Route 53 API, or set account-level user and access management through the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) API.

See the following topics for more information about how Amazon Route 53 works.

Topics

Hosted Zones

DNS Domain Name Format

Supported DNS Resource Record Types

Limits on Amazon Route 53 API Requests and Entity Counts

DNS Constraints and Behaviors

Amazon Route 53 Pricing

AWS Identity and Access Management

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Creating a Subdomain That Uses Amazon Route 53 without Migrating the Parent Domain

You can create a subdomain that uses Amazon Route 53 as the DNS service without migrating the parent domain from another DNS service.

The process has four basic steps:

Create an Amazon Route 53 hosted zone for the subdomain.

Add resource record sets for the new subdomain to your Amazon Route 53 hosted zone.

API only: Confirm that your changes have propagated to all Amazon Route 53 DNS servers.

Note

Currently, the only way to verify that changes have propagated is to use the GetChange API action. Changes generally propagate to all Amazon Route 53 name servers in a couple of minutes. In rare circumstances, propagation can take up to 30 minutes.

Update the DNS service for the parent domain by adding name server records for the subdomain.

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Creating a Hosted Zone for the New Subdomain
When you want to use Amazon Route 53 as the DNS service for a new subdomain without migrating the parent domain, you start by creating a hosted zone for the subdomain. Amazon Route 53 stores information about your subdomain in the hosted zone.

Note

When you create a hosted zone, Amazon Route 53 automatically creates four name server (NS) records and a start of authority (SOA) record for the zone. The NS records identify the name servers that you give to your registrar or your DNS service so that queries are routed to Amazon Route 53 name servers. For more information about NS and SOA records, see NS and SOA Records that Amazon Route 53 Creates for a Hosted Zone.

To create a hosted zone using the Amazon Route 53 console, perform the following procedure. To create a hosted zone using the Amazon Route 53 API, use the CreateHostedZone action. For more information, see POST CreateHostedZone in the Amazon Route 53 API Reference.

https://console.aws.amazon.com/route53/.

In the Amazon Route 53 console, above the left pane, click Create Hosted Zone.

In the right pane, enter a domain name and, optionally, a comment. For more information about a field, see the tool tip for the field.

Below the right pane, click Create Hosted Zone.

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Updating Your DNS Service with Name Server Records for the Subdomain
After your changes to Amazon Route 53 resource record sets have propagated (see Checking the Status of Your Changes (API Only)), update the DNS service for the parent domain by adding NS records for the subdomain. This is known as delegating responsibility for the subdomain to Amazon Route 53. For example, if the parent domain example.com is hosted with another DNS service and you created the subdomain test.example.com in Amazon Route 53, you must update the DNS service for example.com with new NS records for test.example.com.

Perform the following procedure.

Using the method provided by your DNS service, back up the zone file for the parent domain.

In the Amazon Route 53 console, get the name servers in the delegation set for your Amazon Route 53 hosted zone:

Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon Route 53 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/route53/.

On the Hosted Zones page, click the name of the hosted zone.

In the right pane, make note of the four servers listed for Delegation Set.

Alternatively, you can use the GetHostedZone action. For more information, see GetHostedZone in the Amazon Route 53 API Reference.

Using the method provided by the DNS service of the parent domain, add NS records for the subdomain to the zone file for the parent domain. In these NS records, specify the four Amazon Route 53 name servers that are associated with the hosted zone that you created in Step 1.

Caution

Do not add a start of authority (SOA) record to the zone file for the parent domain. Because the subdomain will use Amazon Route 53, the DNS service for the parent domain is not the authority for the subdomain.

If your DNS service automatically added an SOA record for the subdomain, delete the record for the subdomain. However, do not delete the SOA record for the parent domain.
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eva2000 · Sep 25, 2014

Just tested this out on a subdomain and works perfectly

hosted subdomain DNS record on Amazon AWS's Route 53 DNS service with GeoDNS based DNS direction via latency based queries routing (other routing options) to 4 different servers based in the following cities:

Atlanta

Seattle

Los Angeles

New Jersey

One step closer to my custom SPDY SSL based private CDN service using Centmin Mod LEMP web stack

Price wise using AWS Route 53 calculator would cost US$38.25/month for 25 hosted zones + 25 heathcheck/failovers & 10 million geo dns queries/month or US$459/yr. For a single hosted zone + 1 health check and 1 million geo dns queries/month would cost US$1.95/month or US$23.40/yr.

While for DNSMadeEasy pricing with business plan at US$59.95/yr you get 25 domains, 10 million dns/queries/month with 3 failover sets included, with each additional failover at US$4.95 or 10 failover sets for US$45.95. So would need 22 additional failover sets for 2x 10 packs + 2x singles - 2x45.95 + 2x4.95 = US$101.80/yr. So base cost would be $59.95 + 101.80/yr = US$161.75/yr but that excludes GeoDNS which they call Global Traffic Director which costs US$660/yr per domain, so for 25 domains = 25x660 = US$16,500/yr. So total cost would be $161.75 + 16,500 = US$16,661.75/yr

So being able to use Amazon Route 53 for subdomain only GeoDNS based DNS and keep parent domain on DNSMadeEasy is the best of both worlds

Amazon Route 53 settings for Latency or Geolocation based DNS A record

Latency based

US West (Northern California) Region us-west-1

US West (Oregon) Region us-west-2

US East (Northern Virginia) Region us-east-1

EU (Ireland) Region eu-west-1

Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region ap-northeast-1

Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region ap-southeast-1

Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region ap-southeast-2

South America (Sao Paulo) Region sa-east-1

China (Beijing) Region cn-north1

Geolocation

DNSMadeEasy subdomain only Amazon Route 53 DNS nameservers

Further reading:

Transitioning to Latency-Based Routing in Amazon Route 53

List of AWS regions and end points

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Featured Domains Amazon AWS Route 53 DNS management for subdomains !

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Amazon Route 53 settings for Latency or Geolocation based DNS A record

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Featured Domains Amazon AWS Route 53 DNS management for subdomains !

eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

What is Amazon Route 53 ?

eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

Amazon Route 53 settings for Latency or Geolocation based DNS A record

.