This component is responsible for provisioning a DNS zone which manages subdomains delegated from a DNS zone in the primary DNS account. The primary DNS zone is expected to already be provisioned via the dns-primary component.

If you are deploying a root zone (e.g example.com) rather than a subdomain delegated from a root zone (e.g prod.example.com), and only a single account needs to manage or update the zone you are deploying, then you should use dns-primary instead to deploy that root zone into the target account. See Why not use dns-delegated for all vanity domains? for more details on that.

This component also provisions a wildcard ACM certificate for the given subdomain.

This component should only be deployed globally, which is to say once per account. See Why should the dns-delegated component be deployed globally rather than regionally? for details on why.

Note that once you delegate a subdomain (e.g. prod.example.com) to an account, that account can deploy multiple levels of sub-subdomains (e.g. api.use1.prod.example.com) without further configuration, although you will need to create additional TLS certificates, as the wildcard in a wildcard TLS certificate only matches a single level. You can use our acm component for that.

Usage

Stack Level: Global

Here's an example snippet for how to use this component. Use this component in global stacks for any accounts where you host services that need DNS records on a given subdomain (e.g. delegated zone) of the root domain (e.g. primary zone).

Public Hosted Zone devplatform.example.net will be created and example.net HZ in the dns primary account will contain a record delegating DNS to the new HZ

This will create an ACM record

components:
  terraform:
    dns-delegated:
      vars:
        zone_config:
          - subdomain: devplatform
            zone_name: example.net
        request_acm_certificate: true
        dns_private_zone_enabled: false
        #  dns_soa_config configures the SOA record for the zone::
        #    - awsdns-hostmaster.amazon.com. ; AWS default value for administrator email address
        #    - 1 ; serial number, not used by AWS
        #    - 7200 ; refresh time in seconds for secondary DNS servers to refresh SOA record
        #    - 900 ; retry time in seconds for secondary DNS servers to retry failed SOA record update
        #    - 1209600 ; expire time in seconds (1209600 is 2 weeks) for secondary DNS servers to remove SOA record if they cannot refresh it
        #    - 60 ; nxdomain TTL, or time in seconds for secondary DNS servers to cache negative responses
        #    See [SOA Record Documentation](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/SOA-NSrecords.html) for more information.
        dns_soa_config: "awsdns-hostmaster.amazon.com. 1 7200 900 1209600 60"

Private Hosted Zone devplatform.example.net will be created and example.net HZ in the dns primary account will contain a record delegating DNS to the new HZ

This will create an ACM record using a Private CA

components:
  terraform:
    dns-delegated:
      vars:
        zone_config:
          - subdomain: devplatform
            zone_name: example.net
        request_acm_certificate: true
        dns_private_zone_enabled: true
        vpc_region_abbreviation_type: short
        vpc_primary_environment_name: use2
        certificate_authority_component_name: private-ca-subordinate
        certificate_authority_stage_name: pca
        certificate_authority_environment_name: use2
        certificate_authority_component_key: subordinate

Limitations

Switching a hosted zone from public to private can cause issues because the provider will try to do an update instead of a ForceNew.

See: hashicorp/terraform-provider-aws#7614

It's not possible to toggle between public and private so if switching from public to private and downtime is acceptable, delete the records of the hosted zone, delete the hosted zone, destroy the terraform component, and deploy with the new settings.

NOTE: With each of these workarounds, you may have an issue connecting to the service specific provider e.g. for auroro-postgres you may get an error of the host set to localhost on the postgresql provider resulting in an error. To get around this, dump the endpoint using atmos terraform show, hardcode the host input on the provider, and re-run the apply.

Workaround if downtime is fine

1. Delete anything using ACMs connected to previous hosted zones
2. Delete ACMs
3. Delete entries in public hosted zone
4. Delete hosted zone
5. Use atmos to destroy dns-delegated to remove the public hosted zone
6. Use atmos to deploy dns-delegated for the private hosted zone
7. Move aurora-postgres, msk, external-dns, echo-server, etc to the new hosted zone by re-deploying

Workaround if downtime is not fine

1. Create a new virtual component of dns-delegated with the correct private inputs (see above)
2. Deploy the new dns-delegated-private component
3. Move aurora-postgres, msk, external-dns, echo-server, etc to the new hosted zone by re-deploying

Caveats

• Do not create a delegation for subdomain of a domain in a zone for which that zone is not authoritative for the subdomain (usually because you already delegated a parent subdomain). Though Amazon Route 53 will allow you to, you should not do it. For historic reasons, Route 53 Public DNS allows customers to create two NS delegations within a hosted zone which creates a conflict (and can return either set to resolvers depending on the query).

For example, in a single hosted zone with the domain name example.com, it is possible to create two NS delegations which are parent and child of each other as follows:

a.example.com. 172800 IN NS ns-1084.awsdns-07.org.
a.example.com. 172800 IN NS ns-634.awsdns-15.net.
a.example.com. 172800 IN NS ns-1831.awsdns-36.co.uk.
a.example.com. 172800 IN NS ns-190.awsdns-23.com.

b.a.example.com. 172800 IN NS ns-1178.awsdns-19.org.
b.a.example.com. 172800 IN NS ns-614.awsdns-12.net.
b.a.example.com. 172800 IN NS ns-1575.awsdns-04.co.uk.
b.a.example.com. 172800 IN NS ns-338.awsdns-42.com.

This configuration creates two discrete possible resolution paths.

1. If a resolver directly queries the example.com nameservers for c.b.a.example.com, it will receive the second set of nameservers.

2. If a resolver queries example.com for a.example.com, it will receive the first set of nameservers.

If the resolver then proceeds to query the a.example.com nameservers for c.b.a.example.com, the response is driven by the contents of the a.example.com zone, which may be different than the results returned by the b.a.example.com nameservers. c.b.a.example.com may not have an entry in the a.example.com nameservers, resulting in an error (NXDOMAIN) being returned.

From 15th May 2020, Route 53 Resolver has been enabling a modern DNS resolver standard called "QName Minimization"[]. This change causes the resolver to more strictly use recursion path [2] described above where path [1] was common before. [] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7816

As of January 2022, you can observe the different query strategies in use by Google DNS at 8.8.8.8 (strategy 1) and Cloudflare DNS at 1.1.1.1 (strategy 2). You should verify that both DNS servers resolve your host records properly.

Takeaway

1. In order to ensure DNS resolution is consistent no matter the resolver, it is important to always create NS delegations only authoritative zones.

Requirements

Name	Version
terraform	>= 1.0.0
aws	>= 4.9.0

Providers

Name	Version
aws	>= 4.9.0
aws.primary	>= 4.9.0

Modules

Name	Source	Version
acm	cloudposse/acm-request-certificate/aws	0.17.0
iam_roles	../account-map/modules/iam-roles	n/a
private_ca	cloudposse/stack-config/yaml//modules/remote-state	1.5.0
this	cloudposse/label/null	0.25.0
utils	cloudposse/utils/aws	1.3.0
vpc	cloudposse/stack-config/yaml//modules/remote-state	1.5.0

Resources

Name	Type
aws_route53_record.root_ns	resource
aws_route53_record.soa	resource
aws_route53_zone.default	resource
aws_route53_zone.private	resource
aws_route53_zone_association.secondary	resource
aws_shield_protection.shield_protection	resource
aws_ssm_parameter.acm_arn	resource
aws_partition.current	data source
aws_route53_zone.root_zone	data source

Inputs

Name	Description	Type	Default	Required
additional_tag_map	Additional key-value pairs to add to each map in tags_as_list_of_maps. Not added to tags or id. This is for some rare cases where resources want additional configuration of tags and therefore take a list of maps with tag key, value, and additional configuration.	map(string)	{}	no
attributes	ID element. Additional attributes (e.g. workers or cluster) to add to id, in the order they appear in the list. New attributes are appended to the end of the list. The elements of the list are joined by the delimiter and treated as a single ID element.	list(string)	[]	no
aws_shield_protection_enabled	Enable or disable AWS Shield Advanced protection for Route53 Zones. If set to 'true', a subscription to AWS Shield Advanced must exist in this account.	bool	false	no
certificate_authority_component_key	Use this component key e.g. root or mgmt to read from the remote state to get the certificate_authority_arn if using an authority type of SUBORDINATE	string	null	no
certificate_authority_component_name	Use this component name to read from the remote state to get the certificate_authority_arn if using an authority type of SUBORDINATE	string	null	no
certificate_authority_enabled	Whether to use the certificate authority or not	bool	false	no
certificate_authority_environment_name	Use this environment name to read from the remote state to get the certificate_authority_arn if using an authority type of SUBORDINATE	string	null	no
certificate_authority_stage_name	Use this stage name to read from the remote state to get the certificate_authority_arn if using an authority type of SUBORDINATE	string	null	no
context	Single object for setting entire context at once. See description of individual variables for details. Leave string and numeric variables as null to use default value. Individual variable settings (non-null) override settings in context object, except for attributes, tags, and additional_tag_map, which are merged.	any	{ "additional_tag_map": {}, "attributes": [], "delimiter": null, "descriptor_formats": {}, "enabled": true, "environment": null, "id_length_limit": null, "label_key_case": null, "label_order": [], "label_value_case": null, "labels_as_tags": [ "unset" ], "name": null, "namespace": null, "regex_replace_chars": null, "stage": null, "tags": {}, "tenant": null }	no
delimiter	Delimiter to be used between ID elements. Defaults to - (hyphen). Set to "" to use no delimiter at all.	string	null	no
descriptor_formats	Describe additional descriptors to be output in the descriptors output map. Map of maps. Keys are names of descriptors. Values are maps of the form {<br/> format = string<br/> labels = list(string)<br/>} (Type is any so the map values can later be enhanced to provide additional options.) format is a Terraform format string to be passed to the format() function. labels is a list of labels, in order, to pass to format() function. Label values will be normalized before being passed to format() so they will be identical to how they appear in id. Default is {} (descriptors output will be empty).	any	{}	no
dns_private_zone_enabled	Whether to set the zone to public or private	bool	false	no
dns_soa_config	Root domain name DNS SOA record: - awsdns-hostmaster.amazon.com. ; AWS default value for administrator email address - 1 ; serial number, not used by AWS - 7200 ; refresh time in seconds for secondary DNS servers to refresh SOA record - 900 ; retry time in seconds for secondary DNS servers to retry failed SOA record update - 1209600 ; expire time in seconds (1209600 is 2 weeks) for secondary DNS servers to remove SOA record if they cannot refresh it - 60 ; nxdomain TTL, or time in seconds for secondary DNS servers to cache negative responses See SOA Record Documentation for more information.	string	"awsdns-hostmaster.amazon.com. 1 7200 900 1209600 60"	no
enabled	Set to false to prevent the module from creating any resources	bool	null	no
environment	ID element. Usually used for region e.g. 'uw2', 'us-west-2', OR role 'prod', 'staging', 'dev', 'UAT'	string	null	no
id_length_limit	Limit id to this many characters (minimum 6). Set to 0 for unlimited length. Set to null for keep the existing setting, which defaults to 0. Does not affect id_full.	number	null	no
label_key_case	Controls the letter case of the tags keys (label names) for tags generated by this module. Does not affect keys of tags passed in via the tags input. Possible values: lower, title, upper. Default value: title.	string	null	no
label_order	The order in which the labels (ID elements) appear in the id. Defaults to ["namespace", "environment", "stage", "name", "attributes"]. You can omit any of the 6 labels ("tenant" is the 6th), but at least one must be present.	list(string)	null	no
label_value_case	Controls the letter case of ID elements (labels) as included in id, set as tag values, and output by this module individually. Does not affect values of tags passed in via the tags input. Possible values: lower, title, upper and none (no transformation). Set this to title and set delimiter to "" to yield Pascal Case IDs. Default value: lower.	string	null	no
labels_as_tags	Set of labels (ID elements) to include as tags in the tags output. Default is to include all labels. Tags with empty values will not be included in the tags output. Set to [] to suppress all generated tags. Notes: The value of the name tag, if included, will be the id, not the name. Unlike other null-label inputs, the initial setting of labels_as_tags cannot be changed in later chained modules. Attempts to change it will be silently ignored.	set(string)	[ "default" ]	no
name	ID element. Usually the component or solution name, e.g. 'app' or 'jenkins'. This is the only ID element not also included as a tag. The "name" tag is set to the full id string. There is no tag with the value of the name input.	string	null	no
namespace	ID element. Usually an abbreviation of your organization name, e.g. 'eg' or 'cp', to help ensure generated IDs are globally unique	string	null	no
regex_replace_chars	Terraform regular expression (regex) string. Characters matching the regex will be removed from the ID elements. If not set, "/[^a-zA-Z0-9-]/" is used to remove all characters other than hyphens, letters and digits.	string	null	no
region	AWS Region	string	n/a	yes
request_acm_certificate	Whether or not to create an ACM certificate	bool	true	no
stage	ID element. Usually used to indicate role, e.g. 'prod', 'staging', 'source', 'build', 'test', 'deploy', 'release'	string	null	no
tags	Additional tags (e.g. {'BusinessUnit': 'XYZ'}). Neither the tag keys nor the tag values will be modified by this module.	map(string)	{}	no
tenant	ID element _(Rarely used, not included by default)_. A customer identifier, indicating who this instance of a resource is for	string	null	no
vpc_primary_environment_name	The name of the environment where primary VPC is deployed	string	null	no
vpc_region_abbreviation_type	Type of VPC abbreviation (either fixed or short) to use in names. See https://github.com/cloudposse/terraform-aws-utils for details.	string	"fixed"	no
vpc_secondary_environment_names	The names of the environments where secondary VPCs are deployed	list(string)	[]	no
zone_config	Zone config	list(object({ subdomain = string zone_name = string }))	n/a	yes

Outputs

Name	Description
acm_ssm_parameter	The SSM parameter for the ACM cert.
certificate	The ACM certificate information.
default_dns_zone_id	Default root DNS zone ID for the cluster
default_domain_name	Default root domain name (e.g. dev.example.net) for the cluster
route53_hosted_zone_protections	List of AWS Shield Advanced Protections for Route53 Hosted Zones.
zones	Subdomain and zone config

References

• cloudposse/terraform-aws-components - Cloud Posse's upstream component
• The dns-primary component.
• The acm component component for that.
• Why not use dns-delegated for all vanity domains?
• Why should the dns-delegated component be deployed globally rather than regionally?

Tip

👽 Use Atmos with Terraform

Cloud Posse uses atmos to easily orchestrate multiple environments using Terraform.
Works with Github Actions, Atlantis, or Spacelift.

Watch demo of using Atmos with Terraform

Example of running atmos to manage infrastructure from our Quick Start tutorial.

Related Projects

Check out these related projects.

• Cloud Posse Terraform Modules - Our collection of reusable Terraform modules used by our reference architectures.
• Atmos - Atmos is like docker-compose but for your infrastructure

Tip

Use Terraform Reference Architectures for AWS

Use Cloud Posse's ready-to-go terraform architecture blueprints for AWS to get up and running quickly.

✅ We build it together with your team.
✅ Your team owns everything.
✅ 100% Open Source and backed by fanatical support.

📚 Learn More

Cloud Posse is the leading DevOps Accelerator for funded startups and enterprises.

Your team can operate like a pro today.

Ensure that your team succeeds by using Cloud Posse's proven process and turnkey blueprints. Plus, we stick around until you succeed.

Day-0: Your Foundation for Success

• Reference Architecture. You'll get everything you need from the ground up built using 100% infrastructure as code.
• Deployment Strategy. Adopt a proven deployment strategy with GitHub Actions, enabling automated, repeatable, and reliable software releases.
• Site Reliability Engineering. Gain total visibility into your applications and services with Datadog, ensuring high availability and performance.
• Security Baseline. Establish a secure environment from the start, with built-in governance, accountability, and comprehensive audit logs, safeguarding your operations.
• GitOps. Empower your team to manage infrastructure changes confidently and efficiently through Pull Requests, leveraging the full power of GitHub Actions.

Day-2: Your Operational Mastery

• Training. Equip your team with the knowledge and skills to confidently manage the infrastructure, ensuring long-term success and self-sufficiency.
• Support. Benefit from a seamless communication over Slack with our experts, ensuring you have the support you need, whenever you need it.
• Troubleshooting. Access expert assistance to quickly resolve any operational challenges, minimizing downtime and maintaining business continuity.
• Code Reviews. Enhance your team’s code quality with our expert feedback, fostering continuous improvement and collaboration.
• Bug Fixes. Rely on our team to troubleshoot and resolve any issues, ensuring your systems run smoothly.
• Migration Assistance. Accelerate your migration process with our dedicated support, minimizing disruption and speeding up time-to-value.
• Customer Workshops. Engage with our team in weekly workshops, gaining insights and strategies to continuously improve and innovate.

✨ Contributing

This project is under active development, and we encourage contributions from our community.

Many thanks to our outstanding contributors:

For 🐛 bug reports & feature requests, please use the issue tracker.

In general, PRs are welcome. We follow the typical "fork-and-pull" Git workflow.

1. Review our Code of Conduct and Contributor Guidelines.
2. Fork the repo on GitHub
3. Clone the project to your own machine
4. Commit changes to your own branch
5. Push your work back up to your fork
6. Submit a Pull Request so that we can review your changes

NOTE: Be sure to merge the latest changes from "upstream" before making a pull request!

🌎 Slack Community

Join our Open Source Community on Slack. It's FREE for everyone! Our "SweetOps" community is where you get to talk with others who share a similar vision for how to rollout and manage infrastructure. This is the best place to talk shop, ask questions, solicit feedback, and work together as a community to build totally sweet infrastructure.

📰 Newsletter

Sign up for our newsletter and join 3,000+ DevOps engineers, CTOs, and founders who get insider access to the latest DevOps trends, so you can always stay in the know. Dropped straight into your Inbox every week — and usually a 5-minute read.

📆 Office Hours

Join us every Wednesday via Zoom for your weekly dose of insider DevOps trends, AWS news and Terraform insights, all sourced from our SweetOps community, plus a live Q&A that you can’t find anywhere else. It's FREE for everyone!

License

Preamble to the Apache License, Version 2.0

Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

  https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.

Trademarks

All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

---

Copyright © 2017-2024 Cloud Posse, LLC