---
title: PowerDNS Recursor 5.4.0 Released
description: We are proud to announce the release of PowerDNS Recursor 5.4.0
---

[PowerDNS Blog ](https://blog.powerdns.com)

# [PowerDNS Recursor 5.4.0 Released](https://blog.powerdns.com/2026/03/09/powerdns-recursor-5.4.0-released)

 Written by [Otto Moerbeek](https://blog.powerdns.com/author/otto-moerbeek) | Mar 9, 2026 10:55:35 AM

We are proud to announce the release of PowerDNS Recursor 5.4.0!

Compared to the latest 5.3 release, this release includes the following changes:

- DNS [cookies](https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/yamlsettings.html#setting-yaml-outgoing-cookies) are supported for outgoing connections to authoritative servers. This greatly reduces the effectiveness of (spoofing) attacks. This feature currently is disabled by default, but will be enabled by default in a future release.
- The server certificate associated with an outgoing DoT connection can optionally be [validated](https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/yamlsettings.html#setting-yaml-outgoing-tls-configurations).
- The emitting of OpenTelemetry trace data can is now controlled by [conditions](https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/yamlsettings.html#opentelemetrytracecondition) based on properties of the incoming query. The trace data itself is also more elaborate, enabling more insight in the workings of the resolving process.
- Queries using query type ANY from [clients](https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/yamlsettings.html#recursor-any-to-tcp) and to [authoritative](https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/yamlsettings.html#outgoing-any-to-tcp) servers are now forced to use TCP by default.

As always, there are also many smaller bug fixes and improvements, please refer to the [changelog](https://doc.powerdns.com/recursor/changelog/5.4.html#change-5.4.0) for additional details. When upgrading do not forget to check the [upgrade guide](https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/upgrade.html).

Starting with the previous release the preferred build system is meson. We encourage third party package maintainers to switch to meson, as the autotools build system will be phased out.

Please send us all feedback and issues you might have via the [mailing list](https://mailman.powerdns.com/mailman/listinfo/pdns-users), or in case of a bug, via [GitHub](https://github.com/PowerDNS/pdns/issues/new/choose). In particular we would like to see feedback regarding the new DNS cookie support feature.

The [tarball](https://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/pdns-recursor-5.4.0.tar.xz) ([signature](https://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/pdns-recursor-5.4.0.tar.xz.sig)) is available from our download [server](https://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/) and packages for several distributions are available from our [repository](https://repo.powerdns.com/).

Older release trains are supported for one year after the following major release. Consult the EOL [policy](https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/appendices/EOL.html) for more details.

We are grateful to the PowerDNS community for the reporting of bugs, issues, feature requests, and especially to the submitters of fixes and implementations of features.

 

[View full post](https://blog.powerdns.com/2026/03/09/powerdns-recursor-5.4.0-released)

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