dyndns.com Configuration

Introduction

In order to keep the dyndns.com hostname up-to-date with the dynamic IP address a client can be used. The process of using one of these clients is described in http://www.dyndns.com/. Various clients are available from http://www.dyndns.com/support/clients/ in variants for Windows, Mac and Linux and other environments. See also http://www.linux-magazine.com/. Only the configuration of the last of these will be dealt with here, and specifically the ddclient under Linux.

ddclient is a Perl client used to update dynamic DNS entries for accounts on Dynamic DNS Network Services' free DNS service. It runs under most UNIX OSes and has been tested under GNU/Linux and FreeBSD.

The following guidance might be useful in helping to configure ddclient Linux client.

My dyndns.com Configuration

Installation

The ddclient is available from http://ddclient.sourceforge.net/ along with outline installation instructions.

Full instructions to install and configure ddclient are available from http://www.dyndns.com/support/kb/using_ddclient_with_dyndns_services.html.

A summarised procedure that I found most useful is described in linux-user-ddclient.pdf.

Sample ddclient configuration file

A fragment from my ddclient.conf config file is shown below:

...
daemon=600                              # check every 600 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.
...
use=web, web=checkip.dyndns.org/, web-skip='IP Address' # found after IP Address
...
protocol=dyndns2                       # default protocol
...
server=members.dyndns.org              # default server
...
login=mylogon                          # default login
password=mypassword                    # default password
...

Final Configuration Details

The configuration file is tailored to local needs and the server configured to start-up ddclient on (re-)boot.

# cd /etc
# mkdir ddclient
# cd ddclient
# mv /tmp/ddclient.conf ddclient.conf

Add to the configuration and check the run-level:

# chkconfig --add ddclient
#
# chkconfig --list | grep ddclient
ddclient        0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off
#

Job done!