Managing zones & records

This page explains how zones and records are managed through DNS Panel: where the data lives, the relative record-name convention, and how catalogs are assigned.

Where the data lives

Zones and records are read from and written to the Technitium DNS Server through its API. The panel itself does not store DNS records — it stores only its own access control and logs. Every zone and record operation in the UI maps to a Technitium API call using the central API token. See the Technitium API reference for the exact endpoints.

What a user can do with a given zone depends on their permission level for that zone (view / edit / full) — see Authentication & permissions.

Relative record names

Record names are entered relative to the zone. You type the left-hand part only:

• test → test.example.com
• @ (or an empty name) → the zone itself (the apex)

The panel assembles the fully qualified name (FQDN) before sending the request, because Technitium expects an absolute name in its domain parameter. The conversion is tolerant of already-absolute input: typing test.example.com in full returns the same name rather than producing test.example.com.example.com.

For example, in the zone example.com:

@      →  example.com         (apex: SOA, NS, apex A/AAAA, MX, TXT, …)
www    →  www.example.com
api    →  api.example.com

Catalogs

Technitium supports catalog zones to group and centrally manage member zones. When the panel creates a new zone, it can add the zone to a catalog:

• If DEFAULT_CATALOG is set, new zones are added to that catalog.
• Otherwise the first existing catalog is used.

DEFAULT_CATALOG is optional and is configured as an environment variable — see Installation & configuration. Catalog assignment applies only to zone types that support it (Primary, Secondary, Stub, Forwarder).

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