Lightweight universal DDNS Updater program

Program to keep DNS A and/or AAAA records updated for multiple DNS providers

Features

• Available as a Docker image qmcgaw/ddns-updater and ghcr.io/qdm12/ddns-updater
• 🆕 Available as zero-dependency binaries for Linux, Windows and MacOS
• Updates periodically A records for different DNS providers:
  • Aliyun
  • AllInkl
  • Cloudflare
  • DD24
  • DDNSS.de
  • deSEC
  • DigitalOcean
  • DonDominio
  • DNSOMatic
  • DNSPod
  • Dreamhost
  • DuckDNS
  • DynDNS
  • Dynu
  • EasyDNS
  • FreeDNS
  • Gandi
  • GCP
  • GoDaddy
  • GoIP.de
  • He.net
  • Hetzner
  • Infomaniak
  • INWX
  • Ionos
  • Linode
  • LuaDNS
  • Name.com
  • Namecheap
  • Netcup
  • NoIP
  • Now-DNS
  • Njalla
  • OpenDNS
  • OVH
  • Porkbun
  • Selfhost.de
  • Servercow.de
  • Spdyn
  • Strato.de
  • Variomedia.de
  • Zoneedit
  • Want more? Create an issue for it!
• Web User interface

• Send notifications with Shoutrrr using SHOUTRRR_ADDRESSES
• Container (Docker/K8s) specific features:
  • Lightweight 15MB Docker image based on the Scratch Docker image
  • Docker healthcheck verifying the DNS resolution of your domains
  • Images compatible with amd64, 386, arm64, armv7, armv6, s390x, ppc64le, riscv64 CPU architectures
• Persistence with a JSON file updates.json to store old IP addresses with change times for each record

Setup

Binary programs

1. Download the pre-built program for your platform from the assets of a release in the releases page. Note this is only available from release v2.6.0.

2. For Linux and MacOS, make the program executable with chmod +x ddns-updater.

3. In the directory where the program is saved, create a directory data.

4. Write a JSON configuration in data/config.json, for example:

   {
       "settings": [
           {
               "provider": "namecheap",
               "domain": "example.com",
               "host": "@",
               "password": "e5322165c1d74692bfa6d807100c0310"
           }
       ]
   }

   You can find more information in the configuration section to customize it.

5. Run the program with ./ddns-updater (./ddns-updater.exe on Windows) or by double-clicking on it.

6. The following is optional.

   • You can customize the program behavior using either environment variables or flags. For flags, there is a flag corresponding to each environment variable, where it's all lowercase and underscores are replaced with dashes. For example the environment variable LOG_LEVEL translates into --log-level.

Container

1. Create a directory of your choice, say data with a file named config.json inside:

   mkdir data
   touch data/config.json
   # Owned by user ID of Docker container (1000)
   chown -R 1000 data
   # all access (for creating json database file data/updates.json)
   chmod 700 data
   # read access only
   chmod 400 data/config.json

   If you want to use another user ID, build the image yourself with --build-arg UID=<your-uid>. You could also just run the container as root with --user="0" but this is not advised security wise.

2. Write a JSON configuration in data/config.json, for example:

   {
       "settings": [
           {
               "provider": "namecheap",
               "domain": "example.com",
               "host": "@",
               "password": "e5322165c1d74692bfa6d807100c0310"
           }
       ]
   }

   You can find more information in the configuration section to customize it.

3. Run the container with

   docker run -d -p 8000:8000/tcp -v "$(pwd)"/data:/updater/data qmcgaw/ddns-updater

4. The following is optional.

   • You can customize the program behavior using environment variables
   • You can use docker-compose.yml with docker-compose up -d
   • Kubernetes: check out the k8s directory for an installation guide and examples.
   • Other Docker image tags are available
   • You can update the image with docker pull qmcgaw/ddns-updater
   • You can set your JSON configuration as a single environment variable line (i.e. {"settings": [{"provider": "namecheap", ...}]}), which takes precedence over config.json. Note however that if you don't bind mount the /updater/data directory, there won't be a persistent database file /updater/updates.json but it will still work.

Configuration

Start by having the following content in config.json, or in your CONFIG environment variable:

{
    "settings": [
        {
            "provider": "",
        },
        {
            "provider": "",
        }
    ]
}

For each setting, you need to fill in parameters. Check the documentation for your DNS provider:

• Aliyun
• Cloudflare
• Custom
• DDNSS.de
• deSEC
• DigitalOcean
• DD24
• DonDominio
• DNSOMatic
• DNSPod
• Dreamhost
• DuckDNS
• DynDNS
• Dynu
• DynV6
• EasyDNS
• FreeDNS
• Gandi
• GCP
• GoDaddy
• GoIP.de
• He.net
• Infomaniak
• INWX
• Ionos
• Linode
• LuaDNS
• Name.com
• Namecheap
• Netcup
• NoIP
• Now-DNS
• Njalla
• OpenDNS
• OVH
• Porkbun
• Selfhost.de
• Servercow.de
• Spdyn
• Strato.de
• Variomedia.de
• Zoneedit

Note that:

• you can specify multiple hosts for the same domain using a comma separated list. For example with "host": "@,subdomain1,subdomain2",.

Environment variables

🆕 There are now flags equivalent for each variable below, for example --log-level.

Environment variable	Default	Description
CONFIG		One line JSON object containing the entire config (takes precedence over config.json file) if specified
PERIOD	5m	Default period of IP address check, following this format
PUBLICIP_FETCHERS	all	Comma separated fetcher types to obtain the public IP address from http and dns
PUBLICIP_HTTP_PROVIDERS	all	Comma separated providers to obtain the public IP address (ipv4 or ipv6). See the Public IP section
PUBLICIPV4_HTTP_PROVIDERS	all	Comma separated providers to obtain the public IPv4 address only. See the Public IP section
PUBLICIPV6_HTTP_PROVIDERS	all	Comma separated providers to obtain the public IPv6 address only. See the Public IP section
PUBLICIP_DNS_PROVIDERS	all	Comma separated providers to obtain the public IP address (IPv4 and/or IPv6). See the Public IP section
PUBLICIP_DNS_TIMEOUT	3s	Public IP DNS query timeout
UPDATE_COOLDOWN_PERIOD	5m	Duration to cooldown between updates for each record. This is useful to avoid being rate limited or banned.
HTTP_TIMEOUT	10s	Timeout for all HTTP requests
LISTENING_ADDRESS	:8000	Internal TCP listening port for the web UI
ROOT_URL	/	URL path to append to all paths to the webUI (i.e. /ddns for accessing https://example.com/ddns through a proxy)
HEALTH_SERVER_ADDRESS	127.0.0.1:9999	Health server listening address
HEALTH_HEALTHCHECKSIO_UUID		UUID for healthchecks.io to send a heartbeat on every update check
DATADIR	/updater/data	Directory to read and write data files from internally
BACKUP_PERIOD	0	Set to a period (i.e. 72h15m) to enable zip backups of data/config.json and data/updates.json in a zip file
BACKUP_DIRECTORY	/updater/data	Directory to write backup zip files to if BACKUP_PERIOD is not 0.
RESOLVER_ADDRESS	Your network DNS	A plaintext DNS address to use, such as 1.1.1.1:53. This is useful for split dns, see #389
LOG_LEVEL	info	Level of logging, debug, info, warning or error
LOG_CALLER	hidden	Show caller per log line, hidden or short
SHOUTRRR_ADDRESSES		(optional) Comma separated list of Shoutrrr addresses (notification services)
SHOUTRRR_DEFAULT_TITLE	DDNS Updater	Default title for Shoutrrr notifications
TZ		Timezone to have accurate times, i.e. America/Montreal

Public IP

By default, all public IP fetching types are used and cycled (over DNS and over HTTPs).

On top of that, for each fetching method, all echo services available are cycled on each request.

This allows you not to be blocked for making too many requests.

You can otherwise customize it with the following:

• PUBLICIP_HTTP_PROVIDERS gets your public IPv4 or IPv6 address. It can be one or more of the following:
  • ipify using https://api64.ipify.org
  • ifconfig using https://ifconfig.io/ip
  • ipinfo using https://ipinfo.io/ip
  • google using https://domains.google.com/checkip
  • spdyn using https://checkip.spdyn.de
  • ipleak using https://ipleak.net/json
  • icanhazip using https://icanhazip.com
  • ident using https://ident.me
  • nnev using https://ip.nnev.de
  • wtfismyip using https://wtfismyip.com/text
  • seeip using https://api.seeip.org
  • You can also specify an HTTPS URL with prefix url: for example url:https://ipinfo.io/ip
• PUBLICIPV4_HTTP_PROVIDERS gets your public IPv4 address only. It can be one or more of the following:
  • ipleak using https://ipv4.ipleak.net/json
  • ipify using https://api.ipify.org
  • icanhazip using https://ipv4.icanhazip.com
  • ident using https://v4.ident.me
  • nnev using https://ip4.nnev.de
  • wtfismyip using https://ipv4.wtfismyip.com/text
  • seeip using https://ipv4.seeip.org
  • You can also specify an HTTPS URL with prefix url: for example url:https://ipinfo.io/ip
• PUBLICIPV6_HTTP_PROVIDERS gets your public IPv6 address only. It can be one or more of the following:
  • ipleak using https://ipv6.ipleak.net/json
  • ipify using https://api6.ipify.org
  • icanhazip using https://ipv6.icanhazip.com
  • ident using https://v6.ident.me
  • nnev using https://ip6.nnev.de
  • wtfismyip using https://ipv6.wtfismyip.com/text
  • seeip using https://ipv6.seeip.org
  • You can also specify an HTTPS URL with prefix url: for example url:https://ipinfo.io/ip
• PUBLICIP_DNS_PROVIDERS gets your public IPv4 address only or IPv6 address only or one of them (see #136). It can be one or more of the following:
  • cloudflare
  • opendns

Host firewall

If you have a host firewall in place, this container needs the following ports:

• TCP 443 outbound for outbound HTTPS
• UDP 53 outbound for outbound DNS resolution
• TCP 8000 inbound (or other) for the WebUI

Architecture

At program start and every period (5 minutes by default):

1. Fetch your public IP address
2. For each record:
   1. DNS resolve it to obtain its current IP address(es)
      • If the resolution fails, update the record with your public IP address by calling the DNS provider API and finish
   2. Check if your public IP address is within the resolved IP addresses
      • Yes: skip the update
      • No: update the record with your public IP address by calling the DNS provider API

💡 We do DNS resolution every period so it detects a change made to the record manually, for example on the DNS provider web UI 💡 As DNS resolutions are essentially free and without rate limiting, these are great to avoid getting banned for too many requests.

Special case: Cloudflare

For Cloudflare records with the proxied option, the following is done.

At program start and every period (5 minutes by default), for each record:

1. Fetch your public IP address
2. For each record:
   1. Check the last IP address (persisted in updates.json) for that record
      • If it doesn't exist, update the record with your public IP address by calling the DNS provider API and finish
   2. Check if your public IP address matches the last IP address you updated the record with
      • Yes: skip the update
      • No: update the record with your public IP address by calling the DNS provider API

This is the only way as doing a DNS resolution on the record will give the IP address of a Cloudflare server instead of your server.

⚠️ This has the disadvantage that if the record is changed manually, the program will not detect it. We could do an API call to get the record IP address every period, but that would get you banned especially with a low period duration.

Testing

• The automated healthcheck verifies all your records are up to date using DNS lookups
• You can also manually check, by:
  1. Going to your DNS management webpage
  2. Setting your record to 127.0.0.1
  3. Run the container
  4. Refresh the DNS management webpage and verify the update happened

Build the image

You can build the image yourself with:

docker build -t qmcgaw/ddns-updater https://github.com/qdm12/ddns-updater.git

You can use optional build arguments with --build-arg KEY=VALUE from the table below:

Build argument	Default	Description
UID	1000	User ID running the container
GID	1000	User group ID running the container
VERSION	unknown	Version of the program and Docker image
CREATED	an unknown date	Build date of the program and Docker image
COMMIT	unknown	Commit hash of the program and Docker image

Development and contributing

• Contribute with code
• Github workflows to know what's building
• List of issues and feature requests
• Kanban board

License

This repository is under an MIT license

Used in external projects

• Starttoaster/docker-traefik

Support

Sponsor me on Github or donate to paypal.me/qmcgaw

Many thanks to J. Famiglietti for supporting me financially 🥇👍