Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Avamander 1993 days ago
> It feels like the main reason this isn't possible is because you need to go through a registrar to get a DNS name

I can't agree, getting a domain is much easier than it is to configure the abysmal shit that is Postfix+Dovecot+WebGUI. God forbid you want proper search as well.
1 comments
ryukafalz 1993 days ago
Basically all of that could be done programmatically though. There are sane defaults that can be used for these things; projects like Mail-in-a-Box do most of that heavy lifting for you. (When all you want is a basic SMTP/IMAP/webmail server... a standard config can work just fine.) It doesn't even necessarily have to be done through a command line.

What can't so easily be done programmatically is DNS registration, because it involves money changing hands and there's no standard "registrar API". You'd have to either support an arbitrary number of differently-shaped APIs of different registrars or pick a "blessed few" to support.

link
tracker1 1993 days ago
Realistically, you could support half a dozen DNS providers and get a LONG way towards making it easier to roll your own.

GoDaddy, GCP/google=domains, AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean and a couple others would provide enough for a LOT of people. Especially since godaddy and google domains include dns, and DO doesn't charge for it.

I've setup a script to make it easier to manage a handful of dev domains (commit to a repo, and it updates via build/event pipeline) with DO.. was surprisingly easy. I don't think doing similar for the biggest cloud/dns providers would be all that hard to integrate.

link