ddclient is a Perl client used to update dynamic DNS entries for accounts
on many dynamic DNS services. It uses curl for internet access.
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.
Dynamic DNS services currently supported include:
- 1984.is
- ChangeIP
- CloudFlare
- ClouDNS
- DigitalOcean
- dinahosting
- DonDominio
- DNS Made Easy
- DNSExit
- Domeneshop
- DslReports
- Duck DNS
- DynDNS.com
- EasyDNS
- Enom
- Freedns
- Freemyip
- Gandi
- GoDaddy
- Infomaniak
- Loopia
- Mythic Beasts
- NameCheap
- NearlyFreeSpeech.net
- Njalla
- Noip
- nsupdate - see nsupdate(1) and ddns-confgen(8)
- OVH
- Porkbun
- regfish.de
- Sitelutions
- woima.fi
- Yandex
- Zoneedit
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
- An account from a supported dynamic DNS service provider
- Perl v5.10.1 or later
JSON::PPperl library for JSON support
- Linux, macOS, or any other Unix-ish system
- An implementation of
make(such as GNU Make) - If you are installing from a clone of the Git repository, you will also need GNU Autoconf and GNU Automake.
See https://github.com/ddclient/ddclient/releases
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.
-
Extract the distribution tarball (
.tar.gzfile) andcdinto 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
./autogenbefore continuing to the next step.) -
Run the following commands to build and install:
./configure \ --prefix=/usr \ --sysconfdir=/etc/ddclient \ --localstatedir=/var make make VERBOSE=1 check sudo make install -
Edit
/etc/ddclient/ddclient.conf.
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
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.
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. For the future (v3.11.3), 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: v3.11.3 will use HTTP to connect to URLs starting with http://. See here for more info.
Workaround: Disable the SSL parameter
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
This issue arises when using the use parameter in the config and using one of these providers:
- Cloudflare
- Hetzner
- Digitalocean
- Infomaniak
Fix: v3.11.2
Workaround: Use the usev4/usev6 parameters instead of use.
-
enable debugging and verbose messages:
$ ddclient -daemon=0 -debug -verbose -noquiet -
Do you need to specify a proxy? If so, just add a
proxy=your.isp.proxyto the ddclient.conf file. -
Define the IP address of your router with
fw=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxxin/etc/ddclient/ddclient.confand then try$ ddclient -daemon=0 -queryto see if the router status web page can be understood. -
Need support for another router/firewall? Define the router status page yourself with:
fw=url-to-your-router's-status-pagefw-skip=any-string-preceding-your-IP-addressddclient does something like this to provide builtin support for common routers. For example, the Linksys routers could have been added with:
fw=192.168.1.1/Status.htm
fw-skip=WAN.*?IP Address
OR
Send me the output from:
$ ddclient -geturl {fw-ip-status-url} [-login login [-password password]]
and I'll add it to the next release!
ie. for my fw/router I used: $ ddclient -geturl 192.168.1.254/status.htm
- Some broadband routers require the use of a password when ddclient accesses its status page to determine the router's WAN IP address. If this is the case for your router, add
fw-login=your-router-login
fw-password=your-router-password
to the beginning of your ddclient.conf file. Note that some routers use either 'root' or 'admin' as their login while some others accept anything.
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.
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
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 0Other 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.
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.