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.
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.
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 ...
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!