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
• All-inkl.com
• ChangeIP
• CloudFlare
• ClouDNS
• DDNS.fm
• DDNSS.de
• deSEC
• DigitalOcean
• dinahosting
• Directnic
• DonDominio
• DNS Made Easy
• DNSExit
• dnsHome.de
• Domeneshop
• DslReports
• Duck DNS
• Dynadot
• Dynu
• DynDNS.com
• DynV6 (via protocol=dyndns2 or RFC 2136 protocol=nsupdate)
• EasyDNS
• Enom
• Freedns
• Freemyip
• Gandi
• GoDaddy
• Hetzner
• Hurricane Electric
• Infomaniak
• ISC BIND (via RFC 2136 protocol=nsupdate)
• INWX
• IONOS
• Joker.com
• Knot DNS (via RFC 2136 protocol=nsupdate)
• Loopia
• LuaDNS
• Mythic Beasts
• NameCheap
• NearlyFreeSpeech.net
• Netcup
• NIC.RU
• Njalla
• Noip
• NS1 / IBM NS1 Connect
• nsupdate - see nsupdate(1) and ddns-confgen(8)
• OVH
• Porkbun
• PowerDNS (via PowerDNS-Admin with protocol=dyndns2, or via RFC 2136 DNS UPDATE with protocol=nsupdate)
• regfish.de
• Simply.com
• Sitelutions
• Technitium DNS Server (via RFC 2136 protocol=nsupdate)
• UpdatedIP
• WebSupport
• 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::PP perl 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

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 \
       --localstatedir=/var
   make
   make VERBOSE=1 check
   sudo make install

3. 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

ddclient 4.x changed the default config file location from ${sysconfdir}/ddclient.conf (e.g. /etc/ddclient.conf) to ${sysconfdir}/ddclient/ddclient.conf (e.g. /etc/ddclient/ddclient.conf).

If you are upgrading from 3.x and compiled from source, move your config:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/ddclient
sudo mv /etc/ddclient.conf /etc/ddclient/ddclient.conf
sudo chmod 600 /etc/ddclient/ddclient.conf

Alternatively, pass --with-confdir='${sysconfdir}' to ./configure to keep the old location:

./configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --sysconfdir=/etc \
    --localstatedir=/var \
    --with-confdir='${sysconfdir}'

If ddclient starts but does nothing (just sleeps), run ddclient --verbose --debug and check that === config ==== is not empty. An empty config section means the config file is not being found.

See the ChangeLog for the full list of breaking changes between 3.x and 4.x.

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. 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

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

• Do you need to specify a proxy? If so, just add a proxy=your.isp.proxy to the ddclient.conf file.

• Define the IP address of your router with fwv4=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx in /etc/ddclient/ddclient.conf and then try $ ddclient --daemon=0 --query to see if the router status web page can be understood.

• Need support for another router/firewall? Define the router yourself with:

  usev4=fwv4
  fwv4=url-to-your-router-status-page
  fwv4-skip="regular expression matching any string preceding your IP address, if necessary"
  

  ddclient does something like this to provide builtin support for common routers. For example, the Linksys routers could have been added with:

  usev4=fwv4
  fwv4=192.168.1.1/Status.htm
  fwv4-skip=WAN.*?IP Address
  

  OR create a new issue containing the output from:

  curl --include --location http://url.of.your.firewall/ip-status-page
  

  so that we can add a new firewall definition to a future release of ddclient.

• 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 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.

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.