dncli

Manage your DevNomads services from the command line: inspect your services, manage DNS zones and records, and move zones over from other providers - from a shell or a script.

The command is dncli - named to avoid clashing with the macOS dnctl traffic-shaper at /usr/sbin/dnctl. Install it from PyPI as devnomads-cli.

Install

pip install devnomads-cli

For a global, isolated install (recommended on workstations), use uv or pipx instead - same result, no interference with system packages:

uv tool install devnomads-cli   # or: pipx install devnomads-cli

Enable shell completion (bash, zsh, fish, PowerShell):

dncli --install-completion

Getting started

Create an API key in the DevNomads portal under Profiel -> API Sleutels, then store it:

dncli configure

The key is written to ~/.config/dncli/credentials, readable only by you. From here every command works:

dncli services list
dncli domains list
dncli containers show <id>

Every DevNomads product has its own command group - apps, buckets, containers, databases, domains, emails, forwards, proxies, servers, sites and more. Explore with dncli --help and dncli <group> --help.

Commands accept any unambiguous prefix: dncli e l is dncli emails list. An ambiguous prefix lists the candidates.

Managing DNS

dncli dns zones list
dncli dns zones show example.com
dncli dns records list example.com
dncli dns records set example.com www A 192.0.2.1 --ttl 3600
dncli dns records delete example.com www A

Moving a zone from another provider

dncli dns transfer copies a zone from your current DNS provider into DevNomads. It reads the records at the source (never writes there), shows you the changes, and applies them after confirmation:

dncli configure --provider transip       # store source credentials
dncli dns transfer --from transip --zone example.com --dry-run
dncli dns transfer --from transip --zone example.com

Supported source providers: TransIP and AuroraDNS. The zone must already exist at DevNomads; register or transfer the domain in the portal first.

Multiple accounts

Store each account as a named profile and select it per command or per shell:

dncli configure --profile acme
dncli services list --profile acme
export DN_PROFILE=acme

Scripting

Output is a human-readable table on a terminal and JSON when piped, so pipelines get parseable output without any flags; --out table|json|csv|tsv forces a specific format. Data goes to stdout, everything else (warnings, prompts, status messages) to stderr, so dncli ... | jq . is always safe.

The csv and tsv formats use the same columns as the table view, so dncli servers list --out csv is ready for a spreadsheet.

List tables show a focused set of columns: fields that are empty for every row, and nested collections (a server's IPs, a container's instances, a mailbox list) are left out of the overview. Use <group> show <id> or --out json for the complete record.

To pick exactly the columns you want, pass --columns (-c) a comma-separated list, e.g. dncli services list -c entity,started_at. It applies to every format, projecting json and csv/tsv to just those fields, and reports an error on an unknown column name.

Commands that take a service id also accept a unique entity name and resolve it for you, so dncli domains show example.com works as well as dncli domains show 1234. A purely numeric value is always treated as an id; an entity that matches more than one service is rejected, so pass the id when an entity is not unique.

In CI and pipelines, skip the credentials file and pass the key via the environment:

export DN_API_KEY=...        # beats any stored profile
dncli services list | jq -r '.[].entity'

Certificates

dncli issues Let's Encrypt certificates using the DNS-01 challenge:

dncli cert issue example.com -d www.example.com -d "*.example.com"

The first argument is the primary domain (the certificate CN); add extra names (SANs) by repeating --san/-d. Every name must live in one of your DevNomads DNS zones, and that zone must be delegated to the DevNomads nameservers (one.dns.infrapod.nl, two.dns.infrapod.nl, three.dns.infrapod.eu) - otherwise issuance is refused, since the DNS-01 challenge records would not be visible to the CA.

The certificate is always written to ~/.config/dncli/certs/<domain>/ as cert.pem, fullchain.pem, chain.pem, and privkey.pem (0600). Pass --out <file> to additionally export a single PEM bundle of exactly three blocks - the key, the certificate, and the issuing intermediate, in that order. Add -v/--verbose for detailed ACME progress.

Keys are ECDSA P-384 by default. Pick another with --key-type (ecdsa256, ecdsa384, ecdsa521, rsa2048, rsa4096).

Let's Encrypt is the certificate authority by default. Pass --provider zerossl to use ZeroSSL instead. ZeroSSL requires External Account Binding credentials (create an EAB key pair in the ZeroSSL dashboard under Developer > EAB Credentials), supplied with --eab-kid and --eab-hmac-key or the DN_ZEROSSL_EAB_KID and DN_ZEROSSL_EAB_HMAC_KEY environment variables:

dncli cert issue example.com --provider zerossl \
  --eab-kid <kid> --eab-hmac-key <hmac>

--staging (the Let's Encrypt staging CA) applies only to the letsencrypt provider. cert renew takes the same --provider and EAB options.

Each CA gets its own ACME account: the key lives in ~/.config/dncli/acme/ as account.pem for Let's Encrypt production and account-<provider>.pem for ZeroSSL and the staging CA.

Re-running cert issue is a no-op while the existing certificate is still valid for more than 21 days; pass --force to re-issue anyway.

List what you have issued and re-export any of them - as a PEM bundle or a PKCS#12 (.pfx) file - without re-issuing. cert list includes a provider column showing the issuing CA (recorded at issue time, or inferred from the certificate's issuer for older certificates):

dncli cert list
dncli cert export example.com --out bundle.pem    # omit --out to print
dncli cert export example.com --format pfx --out bundle.pfx
dncli cert export example.com --format pfx --out bundle.pfx --passphrase secret

The .pfx is unencrypted unless you pass --passphrase (alias --password). Both bundle formats carry the same three items: key, certificate, and the issuing intermediate.

A dehydrated-compatible DNS-01 hook ships as dncli-dns-hook:

# dehydrated/config
CHALLENGETYPE="dns-01"
HOOK="dncli-dns-hook"

License

MIT.