DNS Orchestrator

A high-performance DNS control plane built in C++ that serves as the single source of truth for DNS records across multiple providers. Manages internal and external infrastructure from a unified interface with split-horizon views, a variable template engine, and GitOps-style version control.

Status: Pre-implementation — architecture and design are complete; codebase scaffolding is in progress.

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Key Features

• Multi-Provider Management — orchestrate DNS records across providers like PowerDNS, Cloudflare, and DigitalOcean through an extensible provider interface
• Split-Horizon Views — define internal and external views for the same domain, with strict isolation ensuring internal records never leak to external providers
• Variable Template Engine — store records with {{var_name}} placeholders; update a variable once and propagate to all affected records across all views
• Preview-Before-Deploy Pipeline — diff staged changes against live provider state, detect drift, and review before pushing
• Deployment Snapshots and Rollback — every push captures a full zone snapshot; roll back to any previous state (full zone or cherry-picked records)
• GitOps Mirror — after every deployment, the expanded zone state is committed to a Git repository as a human-readable backup
• Audit Trail — every mutation logged with before/after state, actor identity, and authentication method
• Enterprise Authentication — local accounts, OIDC, SAML 2.0, and API keys with full RBAC (admin / operator / viewer)
• Client Interfaces — Web GUI for visual diff review and variable management; separate TUI client (FTXUI) for keyboard-driven terminal workflows

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Language	C++ (C++20, GCC 12+)
Build System	CMake 3.20+ / Ninja
HTTP Server	Crow (CrowCpp v1.3.1)
Database	PostgreSQL 15+ (via libpqxx)
Encryption	OpenSSL 3.x (AES-256-GCM)
Serialization	nlohmann/json
Version Control	libgit2
Logging	spdlog
Testing	Google Test / Google Mock

Documentation

Document	Description
Design	High-level design specification — goals, concepts, and constraints
Architecture	Detailed system architecture — components, interfaces, data models, API contracts
Build Environment	Development environment setup for Arch Linux / EndeavourOS
Code Standards	Naming conventions, formatting, error handling, and ownership rules
TUI Design	Terminal UI client design (maintained in a separate repository)
Security Plan	Pre-implementation security review — threat model, findings, and hardening decisions
Project Framing	Project skeleton and foundation layer implementation plan

Quick Start

See Build Environment for the full setup guide.

# Install dependencies (Arch Linux / EndeavourOS)
paru -S --needed \
    base-devel git cmake ninja gcc \
    postgresql-libs libpqxx \
    openssl libgit2 nlohmann-json \
    spdlog
# Crow (HTTP server) is fetched automatically via CMake FetchContent — no system package needed

# Build
cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=20
cmake --build build --parallel

# Run tests
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

Project Layout

dns-orchestrator/
├── include/          # Public headers organized by layer
├── src/              # Implementation files organized by layer
├── tests/            # Unit and integration tests
├── scripts/          # Database migrations and Docker entrypoint
├── docs/             # All project documentation
│   └── plans/        # Design documents and implementation plans
└── tasks/            # Operational tracking (lessons, todos)