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Alibaba Cloud DNS PrivateZone:Scenarios

Last Updated:May 18, 2020

Hostname management

PrivateZone helps you manage your Elastic Compute Service (ECS) hostnames in a way that makes the instance information more clear.

For example, an enterprise with the private zone example.com has 50 ECS instances in the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) deployed in Zone E of China (Beijing). Among the 50 instances, 20 are used for the official website, 20 are used for mobile apps, and the other 10 are used for internal testing. In this case, we recommend that you configure the hostnames as follows:

  • Set the 20 hostnames for the official website in the format of web01.huabei2-e.example.com. Replace the sequence number accordingly.
  • Set the 20 hostnames for mobile apps in the format of m01.huabei2-e.example.com. Replace the sequence number accordingly.
  • Set the 10 hostnames for internal testing in the format of test01.huabei2-e.example.com. Replace the sequence number accordingly.

Hostnames in these formats indicate the use of the corresponding instances. This makes it easier to manage ECS instances compared to the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, ping command, and secure copy protocol (SCP).

Private API calls

Private API calls save you from modifying the system code when the corresponding IP addresses change.

For example, an enterprise with the private zone example.com wants to obtain account authentication information by calling a private API operation. The API cannot be exposed to the Internet due to privacy concerns.

In this case, the enterprise can assign account.inner.example.com to the API and point the domain name to a reserved IP address 10.23.45.67. When the API IP address changes to 10.45.67.89, you can point account.inner.example.com to the new IP address in the PrivateZone console, without modifying the code that calls the API.

Internal domain name protection

You can protect the privacy of your system by using PrivateZone because internal domain names will not be exposed to the Internet.

Your information can only be accessed in specified VPCs.

Reverse lookup for private IP addresses

PrivateZone supports reverse lookup that maps IP addresses to domain names. This makes it easier for you to troubleshoot network issues.

For example, an enterprise with the private zone example.com performs a reverse lookup in PrivateZone so that it can identify the host associated with a specified private IP address by using commands such as traceroute and host.