Integrate with other applications

How to integrate with other applications

You can generate zone and record data for Simple DNS Plus from other applications.

DNS record data is stored in standard "zone files" (simple text files), located in the "data" directory under the directory where Simple DNS Plus is installed. A standard "boot file" lists all the zones with type, name, and file name.
To examine the file layout, you can open the files generated by Simple DNS Plus with notepad (See RFC1035 for exact specifications).

Each zone has its own zone file - by default named "<zone-name>.dns".
The boot file is named "boot".

Each time Simple DNS Plus is restarted, or the "Reload DNS Records" is selected from the Tools Menu, the boot file and all zone files will be re-loaded.

There are several options for making Simple DNS Plus load new zone files "on the fly":

HTTP commands
Simple DNS Plus can be prompted to perform a number of function through HTTP - either directly from a browser, or any other program that can communicate through HTTP.
See How to use HTTP commands.

Command line / UDP
You can "tell" Simple DNS Plus to reload one or all zone files whenever it is required by using one of the command line options.

Or you can do the same through TCP/IP from your own application.
The "sdnsplus.ini" file contains a "ReloadPort" line. You can control Simple DNS Plus by sending TCP/IP message via UDP to this port number on IP address 127.0.0.1:

reload	As command line "-R" option - same parameters
unload	As command line "-U" option - same parameters
clear	As command line "-C" option - same parameters
tsigkeys	As command line "-K" option - same parameters
udzone	As command line "-Z" option - same parameters

".new" Zone File extensions
You can create new or updated zone files in the "data" directory (under the directory where Simple DNS Plus is installed) with a ".new" extension (instead of ".dns"), and have Simple DNS Plus automatically scan for and load these file.

To enable this, you must first edit the "sdnsplus.ini" file and change the "NewScan" setting to the minute interval to scan for ".new" files (whole numbers only), and restart the program.

When Simple DNS Plus discovers a ".new" file, it will first delete any ".dns" files with the same name, then rename the ".new" file and reload the zone.

Make sure to increment the SOA-record serial number when updating existing zones through this method.

Calling the DNS Look Up tool from other applications
The Simple DNS Plus DNS Look Up tool/window is a COM object which can be called from any script or application supporting COM objects.
For example, using VBScript it can be called like this:

Set luObj = CreateObject("sdnslookup.lookupobj")
luObj.lookup "domain.com", "A"

There is only one object/class "sdnslookup.lookupobj", and there is only one method "lookup".
The "lookup" method takes two parameters where the first is the domain name or IP address to look up, and the second is the type of lookup to perform (A, MX, WHOIS, etc.).
The first parameter is mandatory, and the second parameter is optional (defaults to "A").
The "lookup" method displays the DNS Look Up window and performs the requested lookup.

This functionality is for GUI applications only - no data is returned from the "lookup" method call.

A small utility and supporting files for integration this into the Internet Explorer selection context menu is included with the Simple DNS Plus installation in the "ie-context" sub-directory.

A tutorial of how to add a WHOIS button to Outlook 2003 using this functionality is available online at http://www.simpledns.com/tutor/outlook-whois.asp