Edit DNS records with gcloud by reading/piping from file

Question

I am able to edit DNS records with gcloud tool by interactively editing JSON file from vi/mate using the command:

gcloud dns records --zone=myzone edit

However, I would like to be able to do bulk updates, something like this:

gcloud dns records --zone=myzone edit < my-additional-records.txt

...where my-additional-records.txt contain the DNS records I want to add.

I think it is not so simple as the JSON file to edit contains both addition and deletion of DNS records. So, any tips will be appreciated.

Answer 1

I think you could try using the linux line editor 'ed' like this:

EDITOR=ed gcloud dns records --zone=myzone edit <<-EOF
12i
, {
        "kind": "dns#resourceRecordSet",
        "name": "a.mydomain.org.",
        "rrdatas": [
            "111.222.111.222"
        ],
        "ttl": 21600,
        "type": "A"
}
.
,wq
EOF

This assumes that the top of the edit file looks something like this (so you an append your addition to the 12th line)

{
    "additions": [
        {
            "kind": "dns#resourceRecordSet",
            "name": "mydomain.org.",
            "rrdatas": [
                "ns-cloud-c1.googledomains.com. dns-admin.google.com. 2 21600 3600 1209600 300"
            ],
            "ttl": 21600,
            "type": "SOA"
        },

More details on how to use ed here: http://www.gnu.org/software/ed/manual/ed_manual.html

Answer 2

Providing this new answer since gcloud dns ... has been significantly improved since this question was asked. There are now two ways in which you can edit record-sets.

1. Using export/import commands as follows:

   gcloud dns record-sets export --zone my-zone RECORDS-FILE
   

   By default, RECORDS-FILE is in yaml format. You can also get it in zone file format by using the --zone-file-format flag.

   You can then edit RECORDS-FILE using any editor of your choice, and import the changed records using:

   gcloud dns record-sets import --zone my-zone --delete-all-existing RECORDS-FILE
   

   Import also accepts --zone-file-format. If you want to just add/edit some records but not all of them, you can omit the --delete-all-existing flag.

2. Using the transaction command group as follows:

   gcloud dns record-sets transaction start # Start transaction
   gcloud dns record-sets transaction add/remove # Add remove records
   gcloud dns record-sets transaction execute # Execute transaction