Infoblox - CSV Import Deletion with Unknown details

[#1]

Hi Fairly new to the Infoblox experience,

I've been asked to remove about 500 Entries within Infoblox.

The issue is they are a mix of DNS/DHCP entries, with some being A-Records and some being Host entries.
I have the FQDN for all the entries that need to be removed but thats all.

Is there not a Bulk Deletion option that will find a Hostname/FQDN and delete the entry in Infoblox so I can tidy up, without an IP address being required.

Any idea would be of great help thanks.

[#2]

Infoblox does have a bulk deletion option, but it typically requires more specific details than just the FQDN. To delete entries based on FQDNs, you can use Infoblox's Data Management API or Grid Manager. In Grid Manager, you can use the "Bulk Operations" feature under the "Data Management" section, but you might need to export the data first and format it according to the requirements. Flooring Contractor in Bowmanville

[#3]

So I've been given a list of over 100 hostnames to remove....
Your telling me without the exact details for each one, I cant remove the entries from Infoblox other than going to them one by one and deleting....

That seems ludicrous. The time it would take me to find every detail for each Entry I could delete them faster by going to them one by one, extremely time inefficient.

Surely there is a better way than this.

[#4]

Other than using a script to do this via API, you can export current data in CSV to get the CSV schema and then import with "DELETE" selected. This will (counter intuativly) delete from NIOS the data that you import.

Data Management > DNS > CSV Job Manager > CSV Export > + > Unselect everything and then select "A Record" only.

This will export all A records. This gives you the CSV Schema you need.

Keep line 1 and delete everything else. You need the following columns

• header-arecord (value will be "arecord" for every row)
• address*
• fqdn*

You will need to fill in the IP and FQDN for each FQDN you want to delete.

Repeate for Host data. With just including the data for the following columns (I still needed the full column headers though)

• header-hostrecord
• fqdn*

To delete, Data Management > DNS > CSV Job Manager > CSV Import (don't forget to select DELETE as the action)

[#5]

there are some caveats here too...

You need to know what type of record you want to get rid of.  So the CSV file you generate is going to be based on a 'list of hostnames'.   

Depending on how those names exist in infoblox, (Host record? A record? is their a PTR record as well?) 

Just deleting A records might end. up leaving some outdated cruft in DNS. 

Since there is no way to know ahead of time how these recrods were entered in the system, there isn't a way to automatically program a way to bulk delete the records.

might make sense to write an API driven script to search all the records for eah hostname and put them into a file. Once you have them all, you can script something to remove them all. 

You could also do a global search and validate your host names only exist as certain record types. If. your lucky, the admins that created the records will have done so in a predicible way, so it will be easier to automate a way to pull them out. 

Exporting the zones in CSV format could also mean you can just match your list in excell, and delete all the other records out of the file, then import them with the DELETE function (as mentioned earlier). 

[#6]

Thats actually really helpful, requires me to know some details which is a bit of a pain as I have potentially 2-10 DHCP entries for each hostname as they are dynamic and have not been cleared.

Essentially I need to capture all of these first in CSV format so I can remove them all. As you've suggested the Hostname with each IP associated.

Looks like I will need an API script according to the other post to gather this info first. Will have a word with the team that administer Infoblox to see if there is anything already in place. As i really don't want to manually one-by-one gather the associated IP's with each hostname.

If i can get this working now it will help me to keep the DNS/DHCP scopes we use nice and tidy for future removals.

[#7]

If you want to keep the database of DNS and DHCP leases tidy, don't forget DNS Scavenging and DHCP Lease Scavenging.

In NIOS, DNS Scavenging can be configured to only mark entries as reclaimable rather than activly deleting which means a smart folder can show you which entries are candidates for deletion.

https://docs.infoblox.com/space/NAG8/22251560/DNS+Record+Scavenging