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Route53 (DNS)

Route53 (DNS)

Overview

The Route53 add-on creates and manages an AWS Route53 hosted zone for your domain. It automatically updates DNS records with the hostnames of the app it is connected to, as well as any apps it is shared with that fit underneath the domain name pattern.

Purpose and Benefits

  • Automatic DNS Management: DNS records are automatically created and updated for your app’s hostnames
  • Shared Zones: When shared with child apps (like preview apps), records are automatically added for matching domains
  • Existing Zone Support: Uses an existing Route53 hosted zone if one is found in your AWS account, otherwise creates a new one
  • DNS Challenge Support: Enables DNS-01 ACME challenges for wildcard certificate provisioning with SecureProxy

CLI Usage

Create Route53 Zone

Find or create a Route53 hosted zone that keeps DNS records for the app’s domains up to date

tapit create route53_zone domain_name=example.com [name=NAME] [description='My zone'] [destroy_on_deletion=true|false] [--ignore-existing]

Parameters

  • domain_name: Domain name for the hosted zone, eg. example.com (required)
  • name: Name for the add-on (defaults to a name derived from the domain name)
  • description: Description of the zone’s purpose
  • destroy_on_deletion: Delete the Route53 hosted zone in AWS when this add-on is deleted (true/false, default false)
  • --ignore-existing: Skip creation if a resource with the same name already exists (useful for idempotent scripts)

Change Route53 Zone Settings

Update settings for an existing Route53 hosted zone add-on

tapit set route53_zone name=addon_name [description='New description'] [destroy_on_deletion=true|false]

Parameters

  • name: Name of the Route53 zone add-on to update (required)
  • description: Description of the zone’s purpose
  • destroy_on_deletion: Delete the Route53 hosted zone in AWS when this add-on is deleted (true/false, default false)

List and Show Route53

List all add-ons attached to the app with their state and configuration

tapit list addons [-w|--wait]

Parameters

  • -w|--wait: Wait until all add-ons reach a stable state (fully ready or fully deleted); exits non-zero if any add-on is in a failed state

Show detailed information about a specific add-on

tapit show addon name=addon_name

Parameters

  • name: Name of the add-on to show (required)

Delete Route53

Delete an add-on and all its associated AWS resources

tapit delete addon name=addon_name

Parameters

  • name: Name of the add-on to delete (required)

Use with SecureProxy and Preview Apps

Route53 is particularly useful when combined with SecureProxy for managing SSL certificates for preview apps with subdomains.

Setup for Preview App Subdomains

  1. Create Route53 hosted zone in your parent app for a dedicated preview domain
  2. Create SecureProxy with DNS Challenge Provider set to Route53
  3. Add wildcard domain to the parent app
  4. Create preview apps with individual subdomains
# In parent app: Create Route53 hosted zone
tapit create route53_zone domain_name=mypreviewsdomain.com

# In parent app: Create SecureProxy with Route53 DNS challenge
tapit create secureproxy dns_challenge_provider=route53

# Add wildcard domain to parent app
tapit create domain '*.mypreviewsdomain.com'

# Create preview apps with subdomains
tapit create preview pr-1234-myapp domain=pr-1234.mypreviewsdomain.com
tapit create preview pr-5678-myapp domain=pr-5678.mypreviewsdomain.com

The Route53 zone and SecureProxy will be automatically shared with child preview apps. SecureProxy will use the wildcard certificate to serve traffic for all preview app subdomains over TLS.

How It Works

  1. Zone Creation: When you create a Route53 add-on, Tapitalee checks if a hosted zone for the domain already exists in your AWS account. If found, it uses the existing zone; otherwise, it creates a new one.

  2. Automatic Record Updates: When the app (or any shared child app) has domains that match the hosted zone’s domain pattern, DNS records are automatically created and updated.

  3. Sharing with Child Apps: When the Route53 add-on is shared with child apps (like preview apps), those apps can also have their matching domains automatically added to the hosted zone.

Related Documentation