# Install octodns with Homebrew, Nix

Tools for managing DNS across multiple providers. Version 1.21.1 via Homebrew; verified 2026-08-02. Also installable with nix: nix profile install nixpkgs#octodns.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:octodns
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install octodns
```

  Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata

### Linux

- Nix (92%):

```sh
nix profile install nixpkgs#octodns
```

  Evidence: nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/oc/octodns/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:octodns
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 1.21.1
- **Source summary:** Tools for managing DNS across multiple providers
- **Homepage:** <https://github.com/octodns/octodns>
- **Repository:** <https://github.com/octodns/octodns>
- **Last updated:** 2026-08-02T22:08:54Z
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- octodns-compare (alias)
- octodns-dump (alias)
- octodns-report (alias)
- octodns-schema (alias)
- octodns-sync (alias)
- octodns-validate (alias)
- octodns-versions (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 1.21.1
## Project history and usage

octoDNS is a Python "DNS as code" toolchain for representing DNS zones in version-controlled configuration and synchronizing them to one or more DNS providers. Its package-nerd identity is unusually clear: it turns mutable provider control panels into reviewable, repeatable infrastructure artifacts.

### Project history

The public GitHub repository was created on 2017-03-14, and the README credits Ross McFarland and Joe Williams as the project designers and authors. GitHub announced OctoDNS on 2017-04-27 in a post about split-authority DNS, explaining that GitHub wanted one system to manage internal and external DNS records and keep zones synchronized across multiple providers.

The project evolved around pluggable providers and a CLI workflow: zone files are read from sources, compared with provider state, and then applied by commands such as octodns-sync after review.

### Adoption history

GitHub's own 2017 writeup is the strongest early adoption signal: it described dozens of zones and thousands of records being managed through GitHub Flow, dry-run previews, and deployment tooling. Homebrew and Nix packaging later made the CLI available as a normal developer workstation package.

### How it is used

Operators use octoDNS by storing YAML zone data and a provider mapping in a repository, running comparison or validation commands, reviewing the plan, and applying changes to targets such as Route53 or Dyn. The same workflow also supports split-authority DNS, where identical records must be maintained across more than one authoritative provider.

### Why package nerds care

octoDNS matters because it treats DNS records like source code without requiring teams to standardize on a single DNS vendor. For package indexers it is a clean example of an operations tool whose executables, provider plugins, and configuration model are the product.

### Timeline

- 2017-03-14: public GitHub repository created.
- 2017-04-27: GitHub published its split-authority DNS article announcing OctoDNS and describing its internal DNS workflow.
- 2026-07-01: GitHub API metadata showed the repository under the octodns organization, MIT licensed, with Python as the primary language.

### Related projects

- The project has provider packages for DNS services such as Cloudflare and Azure, and it fits the same infrastructure-as-code family as Terraform-style DNS management while keeping a DNS-specific comparison and synchronization model.

### Sources

- <https://api.github.com/repos/octodns/octodns>
- <https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/octodns>
- <https://github.blog/engineering/infrastructure/enabling-split-authority-dns-with-octodns/>
- <https://github.com/octodns/octodns>
- <https://octodns.readthedocs.io/>
- <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/octodns/octodns/main/README.md>


## Security Notes

No matching local secret-handling manifest was found for octodns. Nucleus package metadata is still published here so future coverage has a stable package URL.


## Other Package-Manager Records

- Nix - octodns: normalized package name match | nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/oc/octodns/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/octodns.yml](https://github.com/mxcl/pkgdb/blob/main/combined/octodns.yml)


## Sources

- pkg.so package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation
- external package-manager database matches
- cross-ecosystem install command graph