Install PowerDNS & PowerDNS-Admin on Debian 13 (Trixie): Set Up a Nameserver

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How to Install PowerDNS and PowerDNS-Admin on Debian 13 (Trixie): Set Up Your Own Nameserver

Hosting your own DNS infrastructure gives you full control over your domains, improves privacy, and allows for advanced automation. In this guide, we will walk through how to install PowerDNS (an authoritative DNS server) and PowerDNS-Admin (a powerful web-based GUI) on a fresh Debian 13 (Trixie) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running Debian 13
• Root or sudo access to the server
• A public IP address with ports 53 UDP/TCP and 80/443 open
• Docker installed (recommended for running PowerDNS-Admin securely)

Step 1: Install and Configure MariaDB
PowerDNS requires a database backend to store DNS zones and records. We will use MariaDB, which is the default MySQL provider in Debian 13.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install mariadb-server -y

Secure your database installation and create the PowerDNS database and user:

sudo mariadb-secure_installation

# Log into MariaDB
sudo mariadb -u root -p

# Run these SQL commands:
CREATE DATABASE powerdns;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON powerdns.* TO 'pdns_user'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_secure_password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Note: We use '%' instead of 'localhost' so the Docker container in Step 4 can connect to the database.

Now, open the MariaDB configuration file to allow connections from Docker:

sudo nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

Find the line bind-address = 127.0.0.1 and change it to:

bind-address = 0.0.0.0

Restart MariaDB to apply changes:

sudo systemctl restart mariadb

Step 2: Install PowerDNS Authoritative Server
Before installing PowerDNS, we must disable Debian's built-in stub resolver (systemd-resolved), as it occupies port 53 by default. If we don't do this, PowerDNS will fail to start.

sudo systemctl disable --now systemd-resolved
sudo rm /etc/resolv.conf
echo "nameserver 1.1.1.1" | sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf

Now, install the PowerDNS server along with the MariaDB/MySQL backend plugin:

sudo apt install pdns-server pdns-backend-mysql -y

Next, import the official PowerDNS database schema into your newly created database:

sudo mariadb -u pdns_user -p powerdns < /usr/share/doc/pdns-backend-mysql/schema.mysql.sql

Step 3: Configure PowerDNS to use the Database and API
Open the main configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/powerdns/pdns.conf

Update or add the following lines to connect PowerDNS to your database and enable the API (which PowerDNS-Admin requires to communicate with the server):

launch=gmysql
gmysql-host=127.0.0.1
gmysql-user=pdns_user
gmysql-password=your_secure_password
gmysql-dbname=powerdns

# Enable Webserver and API
api=yes
api-key=your_secret_api_key
webserver=yes
webserver-address=0.0.0.0
webserver-port=8081

Restart and enable the PowerDNS service to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl restart pdns
sudo systemctl enable pdns

Step 4: Install PowerDNS-Admin via Docker Compose
The easiest and cleanest way to run PowerDNS-Admin on Debian 13 is using Docker. Install Docker and the modern compose plugin:

sudo apt install docker.io docker-compose-v2 -y

Create a dedicated directory for your admin panel and create a docker-compose.yml file:

mkdir pdns-admin && cd pdns-admin
nano docker-compose.yml

Paste the following configuration into the file. Make sure to replace your_secure_password with your actual database password and YOUR_SERVER_IP with your server's public IP address:

version: '3'

services:
  pdns-admin:
    image: powerdnsadmin/pda-legacy:latest
    container_name: pdns-admin
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    environment:
      - SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI=mysql+pymysql://pdns_user:your_secure_password@YOUR_SERVER_IP/powerdns
      - SECRET_KEY=another_random_secret_key
    logging:
      driver: json-file
      options:
        max-size: "50m"
    restart: always

Launch the PowerDNS-Admin container in the background:

sudo docker compose up -d

Step 5: Final Web Interface Setup
Open your web browser and navigate to your server's IP address (e.g., http://your-server-ip).

1. Create your administrator account on the initial setup page.
2. Log in and go to Settings -> PDNS in the menu.
3. Set the PowerDNS API URL to http://172.17.0.1:8081 and enter the api-key you generated in Step 3.
4. Click save to connect the interface to your DNS server.

Your self-hosted nameserver on Debian 13 is now fully operational! You can now start creating DNS zones, adding records (A, AAAA, MX, TXT), and pointing your domain registrars to your new custom nameserver.

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If you run into any issues during the installation or need help configuring firewalls, let me know in the comments below!