AWS Route 53

· Updated · 3 min read · AWS Networking and Content Delivery · Cloud service

Amazon DNS Service #

Amazon Route 53 is a scalable and highly available Domain Name System (DNS) web service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is designed to route end-user requests to globally distributed endpoints, such as web applications or resources, and effectively connects user requests to the corresponding AWS resources.

Domain Registration #

Route 53 allows you to register new domain names or transfer existing ones. Route 53 can also be used as the DNS service of domains registered with a different registrar.

DNS Service #

It serves as a fully managed and highly reliable DNS service, translating human-readable domain names into IP addresses that can be understood by computers.

Hosted Zones #

A hosted zone is a container of the DNS records of a domain. Route 53 supports public and private (internal) hosted zones. This segregation helps maintain security and proper server hostname practices.

Public Hosted Zones #

  • Public hosted zones are used for routing traffic on the public internet. They are typically associated with domain names that are publicly accessible, such as your company’s website or a public-facing API.
  • The DNS records in a public hosted zone are accessible from the internet, allowing users worldwide to resolve domain names to IP addresses.
  • Public hosted zones are often associated with domain names that are registered through Route 53 or transferred to Route 53 from another registrar.

Private (Internal) Hosted Zones #

  • Private hosted zones are used for internal domain resolution within an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). They are not accessible from the public internet.
  • DNS records in a private hosted zone are accessible only within the specified VPCs. This is useful for internal applications, services, or resources that do not need public exposure.
  • Private hosted zones are not associated with domain registration. They are solely used for internal DNS resolution within the AWS network.

Resolver #

Route 53 Resolver answers the DNS queries of the resources inside a VPC. Private hosted zones take precedence over public DNS, and Resolver endpoints connect the VPC DNS with on-premises networks.

Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) #

Route 53 supports DNSSEC to enhance the security of DNS data and prevent malicious activities, such as DNS spoofing.

Health Checks #

Route 53 enables health checks for AWS resources, such as EC2 instances or load balancers, and automatically reroutes traffic to healthy endpoints in case of detected issues.

Traffic Routing and Load Balancing #

It supports traffic management through routing policies such as simple, weighted, latency-based, geolocation, failover and multivalue answer routing, allowing traffic distribution across different endpoints based on various criteria.

Alias Records #

An alias record points a name, including the zone apex (example.com), to an AWS resource such as a load balancer, a CloudFront distribution or an S3 website. Alias queries to AWS resources are free and Route 53 follows IP address changes automatically, which a CNAME cannot do at the apex of a zone.

Integration with AWS Services #

Route 53 seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon S3, CloudFront, Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), API Gateway and more, facilitating the management of DNS records for these resources.

Global Anycast Network #

Route 53 operates on a global anycast network, ensuring low-latency and high-performance DNS responses by serving DNS requests from the nearest geographically distributed location.

Pricing #

A monthly charge per hosted zone, plus a charge per million queries (alias queries to AWS resources are free), health checks and domain registration fees. See the Route 53 pricing.

With Terraform #

The resources are aws_route53_zone, aws_route53_record, aws_route53_delegation_set and aws_route53_health_check.

See tutorials:

More tutorials that use Route 53

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