Version 3.8.1 of ddclient and older will not be able to update multiple domain names with each domain name containing one to many hostnames.
For example, if you are trying to update domain names example.com and foobar.com along with their particular hostnames (@, www, or mail), ddclient will only update the first hostname it encounters for a domain name.
If your /etc/ddclient/ddclient.conf file looks like the configuration below, during each update only the following hostnames will be updated:
- example.com
- www.example.com
- mail.example.com
- smtp.foobar.com
protocol=namecheap, \
server=dynamicdns.park-your-domain.com, \
login=example.com \
password=faefjawpefoij30498320493r23 \
@, www, mail
protocol=namecheap, \
server=dynamicdns.park-your-domain.com, \
login=foobar.com \
password=faefjawpefoij30498320493r23 \
@, www, mail, smtp
The following hostnames will not be updated because they were already checked for the first domain name:
- foobar.com
- www.foobar.com
- mail.foobar.com
The remainder of this post provides a patch to fix this undesired behavior.
This patch has only been tested on RHEL 6 with version 3.8.1 of ddclient. Your experience may vary with different Linux distributions and versions of ddclient. Additionally, this patch may be applied to future ddclient releases negating the need for the following steps.
Thanks to reader @madsmide for letting me know that as of ddclient 3.8.3 the following steps are not needed.
Patch ddclient
Log in to the Linux server currently running ddclient.
Stop the ddclient service:
service ddclient stop
Copy the existing ddclient binary to another folder:
mkdir /root/ddclient-patch
cp /usr/sbin/ddclient /root/ddclient-patch/
Change to the patch directory:
cd /root/ddclient-patch/
Save the following patch to a text file named ddclient.patch:
--- ddclient 2012-08-22 18:49:15.643067531 -0500
+++ ddclient 2012-08-22 20:32:23.671069165 -0500
@@ -3375,8 +3375,11 @@
my $url;
$url = "http://$config{$h}{'server'}/update";
- $url .= "?host=$h";
- $url .= "&domain=$config{$h}{'login'}";
+ my $domain = $config{$h}{'login'};
+ my $host = $h;
+ $host =~ s/(.*)\.$domain(.*)/$1$2/;
+ $url .= "?host=$host";
+ $url .= "&domain=$domain";
$url .= "&password=$config{$h}{'password'}";
$url .= "&ip=";
$url .= $ip if $ip;
Apply the patch:
patch -b -p0 -i ddclient.patch
# Successful output
patching file ddclient
Copy the newly patched ddclient to /usr/sbin:
cp /root/ddclient-patch/ddclient /usr/sbin/
Modify /etc/ddclient/ddclient.conf
Modify the /etc/ddclient/ddclient.conf file and add the domain name to each hostname:
protocol=namecheap, \
server=dynamicdns.park-your-domain.com, \
login=example.com \
password=yourpasswordhere \
@.example.com, www.example.com, mail.example.com
protocol=namecheap, \
server=dynamicdns.park-your-domain.com, \
login=foobar.com \
password=yourpasswordhere \
@.foobar.com, www.foobar.com, mail.foobar.com, smtp.foobar.com
Start the ddclient Service Again
Remove the ddclient cache file:
rm /var/cache/ddclient/ddclient.cache
Start the service:
service ddclient start
Monitor /var/log/messages to verify everything is working. The logs should clearly show each hostname being updated even if that hostname has already been updated on a different domain name.
