About dyupd2.py

dypupd2.py is a dynamic DNS clients for Linux written in Python (version 2). It supports multiple hostnames, dynamic DNS services, and network interfaces. Only IPv4 is supported and I have no plans yet to add IPv6 support because I do not have a public IPv6 address myself.

If your computer is connected to a box that does NAT, it will not be able to determine your public IP address and, thus, will not work correctly. Try switching to a bridge mode instead if possible.

dyupd2.py is a complete rewrite of the original dyupd.py. It adds HTTPS for encrypted updates and it just is better. It also does not use the Linux ifconfig command to get your IP address like the original but queries the operating system directly in a way that may or may not work with operating systems other than Linux (I haven't tested it. Hmm, maybe I should try it with FreeBSD some day.)

Services

I have been using this for years with the Finnish dy.fi and I used to use it also with the Dyn. It has always just worked with both services (except once when dy.fi let their SSL sertificate expire) There are (or at least used to be) other services that use the same protocol and should also work with dyupd2.py.

License

Both dyupd.py and dyupd2.py are released under the GNU General Public License, version 2 and - as Python scripts - naturally come with source code.

2016-04-14 12:00:00 UTC

Documentation

After setting up an account with your favorite service you have to create a little configuration file. The content should be something like this:

interface = eth0
username  = your_user_name
password  = your_password
url       = http://www.dy.fi/nic/update?hostname=...
status    = /etc/dyupd2/status
refresh   = 30

The values are:

Note: The correct value for refresh depends on the service. Setting it too low may cause your account to be blocked, and too high may let your hostname to expire in between.

After creating a configuration you can try to run the script once with command python2 dyupd2.py {dyupd2.conf}. It should do an update because the status file did not exist and it should create it.

Afterwards the status file should contain something like this:

ip=111.222.333.444
lastupdate=1460633027
time=1460633027

While you should not make any changes to the file (clear or delete it to force an update), you can read the following information from it:

You can use a command like date --date='@1460633027 to convert the timestamps to a human readable format.

Now you can create a cron job or a systemd timer to run the script every now and then. You have to a configurations for each service you use and run the script separately for each. (Hmm, maybe I should allow multiple configuration on the command line if it is not yet supported...)

Note: If there are multiple users on your system, place at least the configuration file in a place and with such permissions that the other users cannot read the plain text password! (Obviously the script should not be writable by anyone else, either.)

Configuration for dyupd.py

I do not know if the old script still works and I suggest you use the newer one instead. However, it uses a diffent configuration file:

server        = members.dyndns.org
username      = test
password      = test
hostname      = test.dyndns.org
forcedupdate  = 6
status        = test.dyndns.org.status
interface     = eth0

The script needs the ifconfig command to be in your path. Some distros do not add such commands to the path of ordinary users and you might have to add /sbin/ and/or /usr/sbin yourself.

Protocol

The dynamic DNS protocol is documented in at least these two locations:

2016-04-15 10:41:26 UTC

Download

The tarball includes both scripts.

2016-04-14 12:04:02 UTC

Email

You can reach me via email at vaino (dot) helminen (at) gmail (dot) com.