Technitium DNS Manager: Complete Command-Line Guide + 2026 Enhancements

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What is Technitium DNS Manager?

Technitium DNS Manager (tdns-mgr) is a powerful, enterprise-grade command-line interface bash script designed for managing Technitium DNS Server through its comprehensive REST API. Released under the MIT License, this pure Bash script provides 100% API coverage of Technitium DNS Server Version 14.3+, enabling complete server management without requiring complex runtime dependencies or compilation like Python or Go.

Technitium DNS Manager in bash

In the rapidly evolving landscape of IT and network management, tools that enhance efficiency and streamline processes are invaluable. The introduction of the Technitium DNS Management script comes as a result of running Technitium in my home lab environment. This bash-based tool is designed to simplify and optimize DNS management tasks for system administrators and home lab automation enthusiasts.

Since most of the Beta videos that have blown up since March 31st focus on the “what’s new” aspect of Jammy Jellyfish, that will not be my focus. Instead, since Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) is released this month, I thought it would be a good idea to prepare a consistent build process for VMware Fusion and/or Workstation using Hashicorp Packer.

Do you have one or more computers available to use for learning software, Operating Systems, and networking? If not, I highly recommend having one dedicated for this purpose. There are lots of jobs for people with technical skills. Whether it’s DevOps, Modern Application Development, Network Administration, Virtualization, Network Engineering, End User Computing, Cloud Computing, Hybrid Cloud, or anything in or around these industry skillsets, there are high-paying opportunities waiting for those capable of proving their value. With the massive resources available to us these days online, you can take an old computer, learn how to install Linux on it, install a variety of development tools on there and start following tutorials, blogs, etc… Case in point, this article/video combo is not intended as a deep-dive technical topic, just a showcase of what you can do with well planned hardware even after it has aged 10 years!!!!

Are you working in a pure Linux environment but want to use vCenter with Active Directory Authentication. Take a look at Zentyal, a Linux based Active Directory Domain Controller (Samba 4), that’s what my newly deployed vCenter 7.0.3 will be authenticating against by the end of this video!

This video will shows you how to Join a Windows 11 Professional machine to a Zentyal Active Directory Domain (Linux). It also covers the steps to configure Windows 11 Pro to Trust a Private CA (Certificate Authority) so that any websites using SSL certs issued by the private CA are trusted. We also install some of the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) to review their capabilities and potential issues. Finally, we explore some shared folders from different Active Directory Accounts.

When deploying new machines/devices on a network, it is convenient - sometimes required - to have DHCP available. A DHCP server will dynamically allocate IP addresses from a pre-defined scope to any systems requesting an address on the segment it is attached to. DHCP also provides preferred DNS, NTP, WINS, Gateway, and more to each of those clients, depending on how it has been configured. For those with licenses for Windows Servers, you can use a GUI to configure your scopes and options for DHCP. For Linux based environments, this commonly means a lot of Google-fu and console work, but that’s not really as much of a requirement with a system like Zentyal.

An Active Directory server can be a great addition to your lab environment. It can provide centralized user, group, DNS, Certificate Authority, and DHCP services. While many may not “need” this in a “LAB” environment, it is always good experience to use corporate/enterprise types of tooling when setting up a Lab environment. Unfortunately not everyone has the funds available to get Microsoft Windows Server Licenses, so this video highlights Zentyal Development Edition by walking you through a basic installation and configuration. By the end of this 20~ish minute video, we will have an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server configured to provide the following functionality: