Alibaba Cloud DNS:Endpoint configuration

Key concepts

Endpoint: An endpoint represents an actual service address whose health status reflects your service availability. Supported address types include IPv4, IPv6, and domain names. An Address Pool can contain multiple endpoints, and a single endpoint can be used by multiple Address Pool.

Create an endpoint

1. Go to the Alibaba Cloud DNS - Global Traffic Manager console.

2. Click Address > Create Address.

3. On the Create Address page, click the endpoint icon > Basic Configuration.

   The Endpoint configuration overview panel appears on the right, containing configuration items such as service availability, endpoint name, endpoint ID, endpoint type (default: IPv4), service endpoint, health check, enabled state (default: Enabled), and failover mode (default: automatic failover).

4. Configure the parameters as described in the following table.

   Parameter	Description
   Address Name	Enter a name to easily identify the endpoint.
   Type	The endpoint type. Supported types are IP address (IPv4 or IPv6) and Zone. Note IP addresses are a common endpoint type. Because service endpoints can also be domain names for services such as CDN, Anti-DDoS, or WAF, both IP address and domain name types are supported.
   Service Address	Enter the Service Address based on the selected endpoint type. For IPv4, enter the IPv4 address of your application service. For a domain name type, enter the domain name.
   Health Check	Optional. If no health check is configured, the endpoint health status defaults to Normal. To use a health check, you must first create a health check template. For more information, see 4. Health check templates. Port: The service endpoint port to monitor with the health check. Note You can configure up to five ports. The port number can be an integer in the range 0 - 65535, including 0 and 65535. A value of 0 indicates any port. Health Check Template: The protocol used to probe the port health. Supported protocols include Ping, TCP, and HTTP(S), and you can use a combination of them.
   Health Status Conditions	The condition that determines whether the endpoint is healthy, calculated as the ratio of healthy health check templates to the total number of associated templates. The following options are available: At least one probe in all health check templates must be normal Detection results of at least 30% of templates are normal. Detection results of at least 50% of templates are normal. Detection results of at least 70% of templates are normal. Detection results of all detection templates are normal.
   Enabed State	The default state is Enabled. If you set the state to Disabled, any Address Pool that references this endpoint will no longer return it in DNS responses. Note If an endpoint is disabled but has a health check template configured, the health checks will continue to run.
   Remarks	Enter a remark to help identify and manage the endpoint.

Bind to an endpoint: Health Check Template

If you did not bind a health check template when creating the endpoint, follow these steps to add one.

1. Go to the Alibaba Cloud DNS - Global Traffic Manager console.

2. Click Address, find the target endpoint, and click Configuration.

3. Click the endpoint icon > Basic Configuration to open the configuration panel.

4. From the Health Check Template drop-down list, select a template that you have already created. A port number is not required for Ping-based Health Check Template. For TCP-, HTTP-, or HTTPS-based Health Check Template, you must specify the port to probe.

   Note

   You can configure a maximum of five health check ports for a single endpoint.

   Each record can be assigned multiple Health Check Template of the same type. The same endpoint can be used in multiple records.

   Set the Endpoint health status determination condition, for example, select At least one health check template reports Normal.

Manage endpoints

Unbind Current Address

Impact: The endpoint is removed from the current endpoint pool, and GTM stops routing requests to it. If a health check template is bound, the health check task continues to run.

1. On the Access Domain configuration page, click the endpoint icon > Unbind Current Address.

2. In the confirmation dialog box that appears, confirm the change.

Enable Globally/Disable Globally/Delete Globally

Impact

Action	Impact
Enable Globally	Before enabling an endpoint, verify that its configuration is correct and its Service Availability is Available. Enabling an unhealthy endpoint can cause service disruptions.
Disable Globally, Delete Globally	If an endpoint is referenced by multiple endpoint pools and associated with multiple access domains, disabling or deleting it affects all of them. Proceed with caution. After an endpoint is disabled or deleted, GTM stops routing new requests to it. However, the endpoint may still appear in DNS queries due to local DNS caching. The change takes full effect after the local DNS cache expires.

1. On the Access Domain configuration page, click the endpoint icon > Enable Globally / Disable Globally / Delete Globally.

2. In the confirmation dialog box that appears, confirm the change.

Failover Mode

Configure how endpoint health is determined and whether the endpoint remains in DNS resolution after an exception.

1. Go to the Alibaba Cloud DNS - Global Traffic Manager console.

2. Click Address, find the target endpoint, and click Configuration.

3. Click the endpoint icon > Failover Mode.

   After the page loads, the Endpoint configuration overview panel shows the current failover mode (default: automatic failover) and Endpoint health status determination condition (default: At least one health check template reports Normal).

4. In the dialog box that appears, select a Failover Mode.

   • Automatic Failover: Default mode. The system includes or removes the endpoint from DNS resolution based on health check results. When a health check fails, the endpoint is removed. When it passes again, the endpoint is restored.

   • Manual Switchover: Manually set the endpoint status to Normal or Abnormal.

     • Normal: The system always considers the endpoint healthy and includes it in DNS responses. Health checks continue to monitor the endpoint and send alerts, but no automatic failover is performed.

     • Abnormal: The system always considers the endpoint unhealthy and does not include it in DNS responses.

       Important

       If the endpoint is not associated with a GTM instance, alert notifications are not sent.

Endpoint status

Health Status

• Normal: The endpoint is healthy. This status applies when all bound health check templates report normal, or when no health check templates are bound.

• Warning: Some health checks report abnormal results, but the configured health status threshold has not been exceeded, so the endpoint is still resolved as normal.

• Abnormal: The endpoint is removed from DNS resolution because the number of exceptional health check templates has exceeded the configured threshold.

Service Availability

The Service Availability is determined by a combination of the endpoint's Enabed State and Service Availability, as described in the following table.

Enabed State	Failover Mode	Manual switchover status	Health Status	Service availability
Enabled	Automatic Failover	--	Normal or Warning	Available
			Abnormal	Unavailable
Enabled	Manual Switchover	Normal	Normal, Warning, or Abnormal	Available
		Abnormal	Normal, Warning, or Abnormal	Unavailable
Disabled	Automatic Failover or Manual Switchover	Normal or Abnormal	Normal, Warning, or Abnormal	Unavailable