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By the end of this guide, you’ll have a DNS monitor checking that your domain resolves correctly and returns the expected records.
  • DevHelm CLI installed or an API token for REST calls
  • An API token set as DEVHELM_API_TOKEN — see Authentication
  • A domain name to monitor

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Create the monitor

1

Create the DNS monitor

devhelm monitors create \
  --name "example.com DNS" \
  --type DNS \
  --hostname example.com \
  --record-types A,AAAA \
  --frequency 300 \
  --regions us-east,eu-west
2

Verify it's running

devhelm monitors list --type DNS
devhelm monitors get <monitor-id>
3

Check results

Results include resolved records, query time, and the nameserver used.
devhelm monitors checks <monitor-id> --limit 5

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Add assertions

Verify that DNS returns the records you expect: 
monitors:
  - name: example.com DNS
    type: DNS
    config:
      hostname: example.com
      recordTypes:
        - A
    frequencySeconds: 300
    regions:
      - us-east
    assertions:
      - config:
          type: dns_resolves
        severity: fail
      - config:
          type: dns_expected_ips
          ips:
            - "93.184.216.34"
        severity: fail
      - config:
          type: dns_response_time
          thresholdMs: 500
        severity: warn
Key DNS assertions:
TypeWhat it checks
dns_resolvesThe domain resolves to at least one record
dns_expected_ipsResolved IPs match an expected list
dns_record_countNumber of returned records matches expectations
dns_response_timeQuery completes within a threshold
For the full list (12 assertion types), see DNS configuration.

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Common use cases

After changing DNS providers, verify that all regions resolve to the correct IPs. Run from multiple regions to catch propagation issues.
Monitor CNAME records that point to your CDN. If the CNAME changes unexpectedly, an assertion failure triggers an incident.
Verify that MX records are present and point to the correct mail servers to catch email delivery issues early.

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Next steps

DNS monitor reference

All DNS configuration options and record types.

First alert

Get notified when DNS resolution fails.

Multi-region monitoring

Detect region-specific DNS issues.