dnswatcher

dnswatcher is an MIT-licensed, pre-1.0 Go daemon by @sneak that monitors DNS records, TCP port availability, and TLS certificates, delivering real-time change notifications via Slack, Mattermost, and ntfy webhooks.

⚠️ Pre-1.0 software. APIs, configuration, and behavior may change without notice.

dnswatcher watches configured DNS domains and hostnames for changes, monitors TCP port availability, tracks TLS certificate expiry, and delivers real-time notifications via Slack, Mattermost, and/or ntfy webhooks.

It performs all DNS resolution itself via iterative (non-recursive) queries, tracing from root nameservers to authoritative servers directly—never relying on upstream recursive resolvers.

State is persisted to a local JSON file so that monitoring survives restarts without requiring an external database.

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No DNS mocking. Ever.

DNS is never mocked in this project — not in tests, not anywhere else. No mock resolvers, no fake DNS servers, no stubbed lookups.

dnswatcher's entire purpose is correct behavior against the real DNS. Tests exercise real iterative resolution against live nameservers by design; a test suite that passes against a mock proves nothing about the one thing this program exists to do.

When live tests are flaky, that is a robustness problem, and it gets fixed with robustness: retries with backoff, querying multiple independent nameservers, longer timeouts — or explicit opt-in gating decided by the project owner. Never with mocks.

Contributions that introduce mocked, faked, or stubbed DNS will be rejected.

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Features

DNS Domain Monitoring (Apex Domains)

• Accepts a list of DNS domain names (apex domains, identified via the Public Suffix List).
• Every 1 hour, performs a full iterative trace from root servers to discover all authoritative nameservers (NS records) for each domain.
• Queries every discovered authoritative nameserver independently.
• Stores the NS record set as observed by the delegation chain.
• Any change triggers a notification:
  • NS added to or removed from the delegation.
  • NS IP address changed (glue record change).

DNS Hostname Monitoring (Subdomains)

• Accepts a list of DNS hostnames (subdomains, distinguished from apex domains via the Public Suffix List).
• Every 1 hour, performs a full iterative trace to discover the authoritative nameservers for the hostname's parent domain.
• Queries each authoritative nameserver independently for all record types: A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, SRV, CAA, NS.
• Stores results per nameserver. The state for a hostname is not a merged view — it is a map from nameserver to record set.
• Any observable change in any nameserver's response triggers a notification. This includes:
  • Record change: A nameserver returns different records than it did on the previous check (additions, removals, value changes).
  • NS query failure: A nameserver that previously responded becomes unreachable (timeout, SERVFAIL, REFUSED, network error). This is distinct from "responded with no records."
  • NS recovery: A previously-unreachable nameserver starts responding again.
  • Inconsistency detected: Two nameservers that previously agreed now return different record sets for the same hostname.

TCP Port Monitoring

• For every configured domain and hostname, constructs a deduplicated list of all IPv4 and IPv6 addresses resolved via A, AAAA, and CNAME chain resolution across all authoritative nameservers.
• Checks TCP connectivity on ports 80 and 443 for each IP address.
• Every 1 hour, re-checks all ports.
• Any change in port availability triggers a notification:
  • Port transitioned from open to closed (or vice versa).
  • New IP appeared (from DNS change) and its port state was recorded.
  • IP disappeared (from DNS change) — noted in the DNS change notification; port state for that IP is removed.

TLS Certificate Monitoring

• Every 12 hours, for each IP address listening on port 443, connects via TLS using the correct SNI hostname.
• Records the certificate's Subject CN, SANs, issuer, and expiry date.
• Any change triggers a notification:
  • Certificate is expiring within 7 days (warning, repeated each check until renewed or expired).
  • Certificate CN, issuer, or SANs changed (replacement detected, reports old and new values).
  • TLS connection failure to a previously-reachable IP:443 (handshake error, timeout, connection refused after previously succeeding).
  • TLS recovery: a previously-failing IP:443 now completes a handshake again.

Notifications

Every observable state change produces a notification. dnswatcher is designed as a real-time change feed — degradations, failures, recoveries, and routine changes are all reported equally.

Supported notification backends:

Backend	Configuration	Payload Format
Slack	Incoming Webhook URL	Attachments with color
Mattermost	Incoming Webhook URL	Slack-compatible attachments
ntfy	Topic URL (e.g. https://ntfy.sh/mytopic)	Title + body + priority

All configured endpoints receive every notification. Notification content includes:

• DNS record changes: Which hostname, which nameserver, what record type, old values, new values.
• DNS NS changes: Which domain, which nameservers were added/removed.
• NS query failures: Which nameserver failed, error type (timeout, SERVFAIL, REFUSED, network error), which hostname/domain affected.
• NS recoveries: Which nameserver recovered, which hostname/domain.
• NS inconsistencies: Which nameservers disagree, what each one returned, which hostname affected.
• Port changes: Which IP:port, old state, new state, all associated hostnames.
• TLS expiry warnings: Which certificate, days remaining, CN, issuer, associated hostname and IP.
• TLS certificate changes: Old and new CN/issuer/SANs, associated hostname and IP.
• TLS connection failures/recoveries: Which IP:port, error details, associated hostname.

State Management

• All monitoring state is kept in memory and persisted to a JSON file on disk (DATA_DIR/state.json).
• State is loaded on startup to resume monitoring without triggering false-positive change notifications.
• State is written atomically (write to temp file, then rename) to prevent corruption.

Web Dashboard

dnswatcher includes an unauthenticated, read-only web dashboard at the root URL (/). It displays:

• Summary counts for monitored domains, hostnames, ports, and certificates.
• Domains with their discovered nameservers.
• Hostnames with per-nameserver DNS records and status.
• Ports with open/closed state and associated hostnames.
• TLS certificates with CN, issuer, expiry, and status.
• Recent alerts (last 100 notifications sent since the process started), displayed in reverse chronological order.

Every data point shows its age (e.g. "5m ago") so you can tell at a glance how fresh the information is. The page auto-refreshes every 30 seconds.

The dashboard intentionally does not expose any configuration details such as webhook URLs, notification endpoints, or API tokens.

All assets (CSS) are embedded in the binary and served from the application itself. The dashboard makes zero external HTTP requests — no CDN dependencies or third-party resources are loaded at runtime.

HTTP API

dnswatcher exposes a lightweight HTTP API for operational visibility:

Endpoint	Description
GET /	Web dashboard (HTML)
GET /s/...	Static assets (embedded CSS)
GET /.well-known/healthcheck	Health check (JSON)
GET /health	Health check (JSON, legacy)
GET /api/v1/status	Current monitoring state
GET /metrics	Prometheus metrics (optional)

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Architecture

cmd/dnswatcher/main.go         Entry point (uber/fx bootstrap)

internal/
  config/config.go             Viper-based configuration
  globals/globals.go           Build-time variables (version)
  logger/logger.go             slog structured logging (TTY detection)
  healthcheck/healthcheck.go   Health check service
  middleware/middleware.go      HTTP middleware (logging, CORS, metrics auth)
  handlers/handlers.go         HTTP request handlers
  server/
    server.go                  HTTP server lifecycle
    routes.go                  Route definitions
  state/state.go               JSON file state persistence
  resolver/resolver.go         Iterative DNS resolution engine
  portcheck/portcheck.go       TCP port connectivity checker
  tlscheck/tlscheck.go        TLS certificate inspector
  notify/notify.go             Notification service (Slack, Mattermost, ntfy)
  watcher/watcher.go           Main monitoring orchestrator and scheduler

Design Principles

• No recursive resolvers: All DNS resolution is performed iteratively, tracing from root nameservers through the delegation chain to authoritative servers.
• No external database: State is persisted as a single JSON file.
• Dependency injection: All components are wired via uber/fx.
• Structured logging: All logs use log/slog with JSON output in production (TTY detection for development).
• Graceful shutdown: All background goroutines respect context cancellation and the fx lifecycle. In-flight notification deliveries are drained on shutdown, bounded by the shutdown timeout.

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Configuration

Configuration is loaded via Viper with the following precedence (highest to lowest):

1. Environment variables (prefixed with DNSWATCHER_)
2. .env file (loaded via godotenv)
3. Config file: /etc/dnswatcher/dnswatcher.yaml, ~/.config/dnswatcher/dnswatcher.yaml, or ./dnswatcher.yaml
4. Defaults

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default
PORT	HTTP listen port	8080
DNSWATCHER_DEBUG	Enable debug logging	false
DNSWATCHER_DATA_DIR	Directory for state file	/var/lib/dnswatcher
DNSWATCHER_TARGETS	Comma-separated DNS names (auto-classified via PSL)	""
DNSWATCHER_SLACK_WEBHOOK	Slack incoming webhook URL	""
DNSWATCHER_MATTERMOST_WEBHOOK	Mattermost incoming webhook URL	""
DNSWATCHER_NTFY_TOPIC	ntfy topic URL	""
DNSWATCHER_DNS_INTERVAL	DNS check interval	1h
DNSWATCHER_TLS_INTERVAL	TLS check interval	12h
DNSWATCHER_TLS_EXPIRY_WARNING	Days before expiry to warn	7
DNSWATCHER_SENTRY_DSN	Sentry DSN for error reporting	""
DNSWATCHER_MAINTENANCE_MODE	Enable maintenance mode	false
DNSWATCHER_METRICS_USERNAME	Basic auth username for /metrics	""
DNSWATCHER_METRICS_PASSWORD	Basic auth password for /metrics	""
DNSWATCHER_SEND_TEST_NOTIFICATION	Send a test notification after first scan completes	false

DNSWATCHER_TARGETS is required. dnswatcher will refuse to start if no monitoring targets are configured. A monitoring daemon with nothing to monitor is a misconfiguration, so dnswatcher fails fast with a clear error message rather than running silently. Set DNSWATCHER_TARGETS to a comma-separated list of DNS names before starting.

Example .env

PORT=8080
DNSWATCHER_DEBUG=false
DNSWATCHER_DATA_DIR=/var/lib/dnswatcher
DNSWATCHER_TARGETS=example.com,example.org,www.example.com,api.example.com,mail.example.org
DNSWATCHER_SLACK_WEBHOOK=https://hooks.slack.com/services/T.../B.../xxx
DNSWATCHER_MATTERMOST_WEBHOOK=https://mattermost.example.com/hooks/xxx
DNSWATCHER_NTFY_TOPIC=https://ntfy.sh/my-dns-alerts
DNSWATCHER_SEND_TEST_NOTIFICATION=true

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DNS Resolution Strategy

dnswatcher never uses the system's configured recursive resolver. Instead, it performs full iterative resolution:

1. Root servers: Starts from the IANA root nameserver list (hardcoded, with periodic refresh).
2. TLD delegation: Queries root servers for the TLD NS records.
3. Domain delegation: Queries TLD nameservers for the domain's NS records.
4. Authoritative query: Queries all discovered authoritative nameservers directly for the requested records.

This approach ensures:

• Independence from any upstream resolver's cache or filtering.
• Ability to detect split-horizon or inconsistent responses across authoritative servers.
• Visibility into the full delegation chain.

For hostname monitoring, the resolver follows CNAME chains (with a depth limit to prevent loops) before collecting terminal A/AAAA records.

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State File Format

The state file (DATA_DIR/state.json) contains the complete monitoring snapshot. Hostname records are stored per authoritative nameserver, not as a merged view, to enable inconsistency detection.

{
  "version": 1,
  "lastUpdated": "2026-02-19T12:00:00Z",
  "domains": {
    "example.com": {
      "nameservers": ["ns1.example.com.", "ns2.example.com."],
      "lastChecked": "2026-02-19T12:00:00Z"
    }
  },
  "hostnames": {
    "www.example.com": {
      "recordsByNameserver": {
        "ns1.example.com.": {
          "records": {
            "A": ["93.184.216.34"],
            "AAAA": ["2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946"]
          },
          "status": "ok",
          "lastChecked": "2026-02-19T12:00:00Z"
        },
        "ns2.example.com.": {
          "records": {
            "A": ["93.184.216.34"],
            "AAAA": ["2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946"]
          },
          "status": "ok",
          "lastChecked": "2026-02-19T12:00:00Z"
        }
      },
      "lastChecked": "2026-02-19T12:00:00Z"
    }
  },
  "ports": {
    "93.184.216.34:80": {
      "open": true,
      "hostnames": ["www.example.com"],
      "lastChecked": "2026-02-19T12:00:00Z"
    },
    "93.184.216.34:443": {
      "open": true,
      "hostnames": ["www.example.com"],
      "lastChecked": "2026-02-19T12:00:00Z"
    }
  },
  "certificates": {
    "93.184.216.34:443:www.example.com": {
      "commonName": "www.example.com",
      "issuer": "DigiCert TLS RSA SHA256 2020 CA1",
      "notAfter": "2027-01-15T23:59:59Z",
      "subjectAlternativeNames": ["www.example.com"],
      "status": "ok",
      "lastChecked": "2026-02-19T06:00:00Z"
    }
  }
}

The status field for each per-nameserver entry and certificate entry tracks reachability:

Status	Meaning
ok	Query succeeded, records are current
error	Query failed (timeout, SERVFAIL, network error)

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Entrypoints

This repository adheres to the Scripts to Rule Them All standard: normalized scripts in script/ are the entrypoints for the development workflow, and the Makefile targets are thin shims that call them. We provide:

• script/bootstrap — install all dependencies (go, pinned goimports, go mod download). It does not install golangci-lint: see script/lint below.
• script/setup — make a fresh clone ready for development: bootstrap plus the git pre-commit hook
• script/projectname — print the project name (used for the Docker image tag)
• script/test — run the test suite (race detector, coverage). Caching is waived for testing, exactly as it is for linting: -count=1 forces every invocation to execute, because the suite queries live DNS and a cached pass queries nothing. Failures are rerun with -v automatically, and the build fails even if that rerun passes.
• script/lint — run golangci-lint, always inside Docker: it builds Dockerfile.lint, which COPYs the repo into the digest-pinned golangci-lint image and lints as a build step, so a successful build is a clean lint. The linter is never installed or run on the host, and Docker is the only prerequisite. Caching is waived for linting: the lint stage is forced to execute on every run with --no-cache-filter, because a cached build lints nothing.
• script/fmt — format all code (gofmt -s, goimports)
• script/fmt-check — check formatting (read-only)
• script/check — run test, lint, and fmt-check
• script/docker — build the Docker image tagged via script/projectname
• script/cibuild — CI entrypoint: plain docker build .
• script/precommit — run by the git pre-commit hook; go mod tidy guard, then script/check
• script/install-precommit — install the git pre-commit hook

Building

make build      # Build binary to bin/dnswatcher
make test       # Run tests with race detector
make lint       # Run golangci-lint in Docker (requires docker)
make fmt        # Format code
make check      # Run all checks (test, lint, fmt-check)
make clean      # Remove build artifacts

Build-Time Variables

Version is injected via -ldflags:

go build -ldflags "-X main.Version=$(git describe --tags --always)" ./cmd/dnswatcher

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Docker

docker build -t dnswatcher .
docker run -d \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -v dnswatcher-data:/var/lib/dnswatcher \
  -e DNSWATCHER_TARGETS=example.com,www.example.com \
  -e DNSWATCHER_NTFY_TOPIC=https://ntfy.sh/my-alerts \
  -e DNSWATCHER_SEND_TEST_NOTIFICATION=true \
  dnswatcher

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Monitoring Lifecycle

1. Startup: Load state from disk. If no state file exists, start with empty state (first check will establish baseline without triggering change notifications).
2. Initial check: Immediately perform all DNS, port, and TLS checks on startup.
3. Periodic checks (DNS always runs first):
   • DNS checks: every DNSWATCHER_DNS_INTERVAL (default 1h). Also re-run before every TLS check cycle to ensure fresh IPs.
   • Port checks: every DNSWATCHER_DNS_INTERVAL, after DNS completes.
   • TLS checks: every DNSWATCHER_TLS_INTERVAL (default 12h), after DNS completes.
   • Port and TLS checks always use freshly resolved IP addresses from the DNS phase that immediately precedes them — never stale IPs from a previous cycle.
4. On change detection: Send notifications to all configured endpoints, update in-memory state, persist to disk.
5. Shutdown: Persist final state to disk, wait for in-flight notification deliveries to complete, stop gracefully. The wait is bounded by the fx shutdown timeout (15s by default): deliveries still retrying against an unreachable endpoint when that expires are abandoned, and the number abandoned is logged at warn level rather than dropped silently. Notifications generated after shutdown has begun are refused and logged, so a late burst cannot extend the shutdown.

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Planned Future Features (Post-1.0)

• DNSSEC validation: Validate the DNSSEC chain of trust during iterative resolution and report DNSSEC failures as notifications.

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Project Structure

Follows the conventions defined in REPO_POLICIES.md, adapted from the upaas project template. Uses uber/fx for dependency injection, go-chi for HTTP routing, slog for logging, and Viper for configuration.

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License

dnswatcher is released under the MIT License, Copyright (c) 2026 @sneak. See the LICENSE file in the repository root for the full text.

Author

@sneak