ddclient

ddclient is a open-source client program written in Perl to update DNS entries on Dynamic DNS Servers. It supports a number of different routers and dynamic DNS servers.

Website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ddclient/

Installing

You can install it on Debian-based systems with the command:

$ sudo apt install ddclient

While installing, it will ask you to configure at least one DNS service. You can change this again later by restarting the configuration program or by manually modifying the config file.

Running

After installing, you can run it with all the default settings by typing

$ ddclient

To print a list of all discovered IPs you can use the command:

$ ddclient --query

For more commands, see the Usage page on SourceForge.

Config File

The configuration file for ddclient is at /etc/ddclient.conf.

DNSDynamic

A typical configuration file for http://dnsdynamic.org/ is:

#
# Configuration file for ddclient generated by debconf
#
# /etc/ddclient.conf
daemon=60                          # check every 60 seconds
syslog=yes                         # log update msgs to syslog
mail=root                          # mail all msgs to root
mail-failure=root                  # mail failed update msgs to root
pid=/var/run/ddclient.pid          # record PID in file.
ssl=yes                            # use ssl-support.
use=web, web=myip.dnsdynamic.com   # get ip from server.
server=www.dnsdynamic.org          # default server
login=YOUR-LOGIN                   # your login
password=YOUR-PASSWORD             # your password
server=www.dnsdynamic.org,         \
protocol=dyndns2                   \
YOUR-DOMAIN

where you replace YOUR-LOGIN (e.g. [email protected]), YOUR-PASSWORD (e.g. 1234), and YOUR-DOMAIN (e.g. test.flashserv.net). YOUR-DOMAIN gets replaced with the domain name you choose when you set up your dynamic DNS service.

This sets ddclient to run as a daemon (service) and check/update the dynamic IP every 60s.