Finding home - dynamic DNS (update #1)

My ISP would like to charge me $10 a month for a fixed IPv4 address, but accessing your machine remotely only needs a known address, not a fixed one, and that’s why dynamic DNS have been invented.

There are plenty of providers for this service, but I use FreeDNS, which provides this service for free for some hosts (5 as of today). Another reason to use this service is that it does not need your account credentials for updates.

Account setup

Go to the FreeDNS pricing page, and select an account type, starter is free.
Fill in the blanks, confirm your email address, …

Host setup

Got the the FreeDNS subdomain page, login.
Click Add a subdomain
Fill the form
- Type : A
- subdomain : mysuperhostname
- domain : mooo.com (or whichever you want)
- destination : should be automatically filled with your current external IP address
- Wildcard : not checked
- Fill the captcha.
- Save!
Now the subdomain page should show mysuperhostname.mooo.com.
Go the the Dynamic DNS page.

Client setup : ubuntu

There are plenty of DDNS clients for ubuntu, but the quick cron example will just work fine.

Click on cron example
Copy the file and add it to your cron (see how)

Replace http://freedns.afraid.org/dynamic/ by https://freedns.afraid.org/dynamic/

 ...
 # You might need to include this path line in crontab, (or specify full paths)
 PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin

 2,7,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,52,57 * * * * sleep 20 ; wget -O - http://freedns.afraid.org/dynamic/    update.php?V2VsY29tZSB0byBjbGkucGlnbmF0Lm9yZyAhCg== >> /tmp/freedns_mysuperhostname_mooo_com.log 2>&1 &

Client install openwrt 18.06.2+ (still working in 20.02.0)

I don’t know since when, but at least in 18.06.2, ddns-scripts dont’t use wget anymore, so there is no more need to install it’s full version.

If you’re using the web interface (luci):

  opkg install luci-app-ddns ca-certificates

Or without web interface support:

  opkg install ddns-scripts ca-certificates

Client install openwrt older versions

Since the default wget (from busybox) does not support https, the full wget and the certificates must be installed:
```
opkg update
opkg install wget ca-certificates
```
If you’re using the web interface (luci):
```
opkg install luci-app-ddns
```
Or without web interface support:
```
opkg install ddns-scripts
```

Client setup openwrt

Edit the file /etc/config/ddns, choose a nice name for the config service, it will be shown in the web interface:

config ddns 'global'
	option ddns_dateformat '%F %R'
	option ddns_loglines '250'
	option upd_privateip '0'

config service 'freedns_mysuperhostname_mooo_com'

    # Use the internet connected interface
	option interface 'wan'

	# Use afraid.org service
	option service_name 'afraid.org-keyauth'

	# Use this authentication key (could be found in the quick cron example)
	option password 'V2VsY29tZSB0byBjbGkucGlnbmF0Lm9yZyAhCg=='

	# Use https, since you don't want someone else to update your own IP
	option use_https '1'
	option cacert '/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt'

	# Get the external IP from the dedicated google service
	option ip_source 'web'
	option ip_url 'https://domains.google.com/checkip'

	# Compare the external IP to this lookup, update when it differs
	option lookup_host 'mysuperhostname.mooo.com'

	# Enable!
	option enabled '1'

Restart the service:

/etc/init.d/ddns restart

Verifications

The IP should be shown almost immediately on the subdomain page. DNS propagation could be a little bit long (3600 seconds caching for free accounts), and this can be verified using dig:

dig +short mysuperhostname.mooo.com
23.75.345.200

DNS and caching

DNS answers can (and will) be cached by the DNS server, and a change in name resolution will take some time to propagate. The duration of the validity for a name resolution is included in the response, it’s the TTL (time-to-live).

The time to live will be a fixed value when asking the authoritative name server, for instance 60 seconds:

dig +nocmd +noall +answer mysuperhostname.mooo.com @ns1.afraid.org
mysuperhostname.mooo.com. 60	IN	A	23.75.345.200

Or a value that decrement when asking another server:

dig +nocmd +noall +answer mysuperhostname.mooo.com
mysuperhostname.mooo.com. 26	IN	A	23.75.345.200

Some providers does not follow the rules and may cache DNS entries longer.

Notes

The update needs a shared secret, in this example V2VsY29tZSB0byBjbGkucGlnbmF0Lm9yZyAhCg==. This one is completly fake, but the real one can be found on the Dynamic DNS page, then by looking in the quick cron sample or at the direct url.

Bonus

echo 'V2VsY29tZSB0byBjbGkucGlnbmF0Lm9yZyAhCg==' | base64 -d

~~~

Question, remark, bug? Don't hesitate to contact me or report a bug.