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DDCLIENT

ddclient is a Perl client used to update dynamic DNS entries for accounts on many dynamic DNS services. It uses curl for internet access.

Alternatives

You might also want to consider using one of the following, if they support your dynamic DNS provider(s): https://github.com/troglobit/inadyn or https://github.com/lopsided98/dnsupdate.

Supported services

Dynamic DNS services currently supported include:

ddclient supports finding your IP address from many cable and DSL broadband routers.

Comments, suggestions and requests: please file an issue at https://github.com/ddclient/ddclient/issues/new

The code was originally written by Paul Burry and is now hosted and maintained through github.com. Please check out https://ddclient.net

REQUIREMENTS

DOWNLOAD

See https://github.com/ddclient/ddclient/releases

INSTALLATION

Distribution Package

<a href="https://repology.org/project/ddclient/versions"> <img src="https://repology.org/badge/vertical-allrepos/ddclient.svg" alt="Packaging status" align="right"> </a> The easiest way to install ddclient is to install a package offered by your operating system. See the image to the right for a list of distributions with a ddclient package.

Manual Installation

  1. Extract the distribution tarball (.tar.gz file) and cd into the directory:

    tar xvfa ddclient-3.XX.X.tar.gz
cd ddclient-3.XX.X

    (If you are installing from a clone of the Git repository, you must run ./autogen before continuing to the next step.)

  2. Run the following commands to build and install:

    ./configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --sysconfdir=/etc/ddclient \
    --localstatedir=/var
make
make VERBOSE=1 check
sudo make install

  3. Edit /etc/ddclient/ddclient.conf.

systemd

cp sample-etc_systemd.service /etc/systemd/system/ddclient.service

enable automatic startup when booting

systemctl enable ddclient.service

start the first time by hand

systemctl start ddclient.service

Known issues

This is a list for quick referencing of known issues. For further details check out the linked issues and the changelog.

Note that any issues prior to version v3.9.1 will not be listed here. If a fix is committed but not yet part of any tagged release, the notes here will reference the not-yet-released version number.

v3.11.2 - v3.9.1: SSL parameter breaks HTTP-only IP acquisition

The ssl parameter forces all connections to use HTTPS. While technically working as expected, this behavior keeps coming up as a pain point when using HTTP-only IP querying sites such as http://checkip.dyndns.org. Starting with v4.0.0, the behavior is changed to respect http:// in a URL. A separate parameter to disallow all HTTP connections or warn about them may be added later.

Fix: v4.0.0 uses HTTP to connect to URLs starting with http://. See here for more info.

Workaround: Disable the SSL parameter

v3.10.0: Chunked encoding not corretly supported in IO::Socket HTTP code

Using the IO::Socket HTTP code will break in various ways whenever the server responds using HTTP 1.1 chunked encoding. Refer to this issue for more info.

Fix: v3.11.0 - IO::Socket has been deprecated there and curl has been made the standard.

Workaround: Use curl for transfers by either setting -curl in the command line or by adding curl=yes in the config

v3.10.0: Spammed updates to some providers

This issue arises when using the use parameter in the config and using one of these providers:

Fix: v3.11.2

Workaround: Use the usev4/usev6 parameters instead of use.

TROUBLESHOOTING

USING DDCLIENT WITH ppp

If you are using a ppp connection, you can easily update your DynDNS entry with each connection, with:

## configure pppd to update DynDNS with each connection
cp sample-etc_ppp_ip-up.local /etc/ppp/ip-up.local

Alternatively, you may just configure ddclient to operate as a daemon and monitor your ppp interface.

USING DDCLIENT WITH cron

If you have not configured ddclient to use daemon-mode, you'll need to configure cron to force an update once a month so that the dns entry will not become stale.

## configure cron to force an update twice a month
cp sample-etc_cron.d_ddclient /etc/cron.d/ddclient
vi /etc/cron.d/ddclient

USING DDCLIENT WITH dhcpcd

If you are using dhcpcd-1.3.17 or thereabouts, you can easily update your DynDNS entry automatically every time your lease is obtained or renewed by creating an executable file named: /etc/dhcpc/dhcpcd-{your-interface}.exe ie.: cp sample-etc_dhcpc_dhcpcd-eth0.exe /etc/dhcpc/dhcpcd-{your-interface}.exe

In my case, it is named dhcpcd-eth0.exe and contains the lines:

#!/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/bin:/root/bin:${PATH}
logger -t dhcpcd IP address changed to $1
ddclient --proxy fasthttp.sympatico.ca --wildcard --ip $1 | logger -t ddclient
exit 0

Other DHCP clients may have another method of calling out to programs for updating DNS entries.

Alternatively, you may just configure ddclient to operate as a daemon and monitor your ethernet interface.

USING DDCLIENT WITH dhclient

If you are using the ISC DHCP client (dhclient), you can update your DynDNS entry automatically every time your lease is obtained or renewed by creating an executable file named: /etc/dhclient-exit-hooks ie.: cp sample-etc_dhclient-exit-hooks /etc/dhclient-exit-hooks

Edit /etc/dhclient-exit-hooks to change any options required.

Alternatively, you may just configure ddclient to operate as a daemon and monitor your ethernet interface.