AWS CLI v2 — Route 53 (DNS Service)

Overview

Complete reference for aws route53 and aws route53domains subcommands in AWS CLI v2. Covers hosted zone management, DNS record operations (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SOA, SRV, alias), health checks, routing policies (simple, weighted, latency, failover, geolocation, multivalue), domain registration, and traffic flow.

Quick Reference — Common Workflows

Create a hosted zone

bash

aws route53 create-hosted-zone --name example.com --caller-reference $(date +%s)

Create an A record

bash

aws route53 change-resource-record-sets --hosted-zone-id Z123 \
  --change-batch '{
    "Changes":[{
      "Action":"UPSERT",
      "ResourceRecordSet":{
        "Name":"app.example.com",
        "Type":"A",
        "TTL":300,
        "ResourceRecords":[{"Value":"1.2.3.4"}]
      }
    }]
  }'

Create alias record pointing to ALB

bash

aws route53 change-resource-record-sets --hosted-zone-id Z123 \
  --change-batch '{
    "Changes":[{
      "Action":"UPSERT",
      "ResourceRecordSet":{
        "Name":"app.example.com",
        "Type":"A",
        "AliasTarget":{
          "HostedZoneId":"Z35SXDOTRQ7X7K",
          "DNSName":"my-alb-123.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com",
          "EvaluateTargetHealth":true
        }
      }
    }]
  }'

List records in a hosted zone

bash

aws route53 list-resource-record-sets --hosted-zone-id Z123 \
  --query 'ResourceRecordSets[].{Name:Name,Type:Type,TTL:TTL}'

Create a health check

bash

aws route53 create-health-check --caller-reference $(date +%s) \
  --health-check-config '{
    "Type":"HTTPS",
    "FullyQualifiedDomainName":"app.example.com",
    "Port":443,
    "RequestInterval":30,
    "FailureThreshold":3
  }'

Covered Command Groups

Group	Commands	CLI Service
Hosted Zones	create, delete, get, list, update, associate/disassociate VPC	`aws route53`
Records	change-resource-record-sets, list-resource-record-sets, test-dns-answer	`aws route53`
Health Checks	create, delete, get, list, update, get-status	`aws route53`
Traffic Policies	create, delete, get, list, update, create/get/list policy instances	`aws route53`
DNSSEC	enable/disable-hosted-zone-dnssec, get-dnssec	`aws route53`
Query Logging	create, delete, list query logging configs	`aws route53`
Domain Registration	register, transfer, renew, check-availability, get/update details	`aws route53domains`

Command Reference

See references/index.md for the quick reference table and global options.

Group	File	Commands
Hosted Zones	`hosted-zones.md`	create-hosted-zone, delete-hosted-zone, get-hosted-zone, list-hosted-zones, list-hosted-zones-by-name, update-hosted-zone-comment, associate-vpc-with-hosted-zone, disassociate-vpc-from-hosted-zone, list-hosted-zones-by-vpc, get-hosted-zone-count, get-hosted-zone-limit
Records	`records.md`	change-resource-record-sets, list-resource-record-sets, test-dns-answer, get-change
Health Checks	`health-checks.md`	create-health-check, delete-health-check, get-health-check, list-health-checks, update-health-check, get-health-check-status, get-health-check-last-failure-reason, get-health-check-count, get-checker-ip-ranges
Traffic Policies	`traffic-policies.md`	create-traffic-policy, create-traffic-policy-version, get-traffic-policy, delete-traffic-policy, list-traffic-policies, list-traffic-policy-versions, update-traffic-policy-comment, create-traffic-policy-instance, get-traffic-policy-instance, delete-traffic-policy-instance, list-traffic-policy-instances, list-traffic-policy-instances-by-hosted-zone, list-traffic-policy-instances-by-policy, update-traffic-policy-instance, get-traffic-policy-instance-count
DNSSEC	`dnssec.md`	enable-hosted-zone-dnssec, disable-hosted-zone-dnssec, get-dnssec, create-key-signing-key, delete-key-signing-key, activate-key-signing-key, deactivate-key-signing-key
Query Logging	`query-logging.md`	create-query-logging-config, delete-query-logging-config, get-query-logging-config, list-query-logging-configs
Reusable Delegation Sets	`reusable-delegation-sets.md`	create-reusable-delegation-set, delete-reusable-delegation-set, get-reusable-delegation-set, list-reusable-delegation-sets
Domain Registration	`domain-registration.md`	register-domain, transfer-domain, renew-domain, check-domain-availability, check-domain-transferability, get-domain-detail, list-domains, update-domain-nameservers, update-domain-contact, enable-domain-auto-renew, disable-domain-auto-renew, enable-domain-transfer-lock, disable-domain-transfer-lock, get-operation-detail, list-operations, list-prices, delete-domain
Tags	`tags.md`	change-tags-for-resource, list-tags-for-resource, list-tags-for-resources, list-tags-for-domain, update-tags-for-domain, delete-tags-for-domain