I’m new to self-hosting. All I did so far was install Ubuntu Server, enable SSH and tried setting up DuckDNS, which I could not set up automatic update of my IP following the documentation, neither updating manually through the website, which even though seems to be changed, when I ssh the domain, I get the initial IP
Anyone using DuckDNS? Is it working properly for you guys? Did I just mess something up?
What other DDNS providers would you recommend me?
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I already used desec.io for my domains back when I had static IP blocks at home so I just used the dyndns api with ddclient to update them automatically for my dynamic IP.
I have dyndns. I don’t recommend them, unless a coworker just gave you their lifetime pro account for free.
Thanks Roody, wherever you are!
I put the curl command to update my duckdns IP in cron about 13 years ago, and have never needed to touch it once.
It’s just worked for me
I did this too, and my log always gets an OK. But the IP never changes.
The ip shouldnt change unless the server is down for a period of time and the ip is dynamic.
If it is returning OK then it sounds like duckdns is working as intended
This. Never had an issue.
Oh wow, me too. And I just checked and it’s still there, still works. The token is 10 years old.
This is a great question that is relevant for me this week. Been trying to set up a wireguard vpn and found I need a DDNS. Lots of good answers to look into in the comments. Thanks everyone.
DuckDNS has long enough latency (over 2000ms) where Google Assistant can’t connect. I moved to FreeDDNS and my Home Assistant issues went away.
I ended up using Dynv6, great and simple serivce does exactly what I need. Made in Germany.
Me too. Draytek Router automatically updates the IP. Set it up once and it is working since 2-3 years (don’t exactly rember when I set it up).
I’ve used no-ip.com for years without issue.
My NAS supports a few services out of the box. If you have anything like that, see what they support natively first.
Duck DNS works great… Most of the time. If you cannot accept downtime multiple times a year, get yourself a domain and a service like cloud flare instead. DuckDNS is free and you get more than you pay for, but the bar is low when the cost is zero.
Yeah DuckDNS gave me many false positive outages where its resolution failed, for multiple half-days every year I used it (5yrs+).
I moved to the afraid.org and its been solid, if anyone’s looking for another free service - only cost is you have to log in once every six months to validate your account is not dormant. They have a paid tier which gives more features (that most home users will never need), and that allows the guy running it to fund a very reliable service.
Or just use two dns providers. I have duckdns and desec. That latter seems to be a bit faster and has’t had any downtime for me so far.
This might be obvious but it could be caching? Use a tool like dig to check if it’s really updated. Not had a problem with duckdns, works good.
I use ddclient on my vps
I am using Dynu. It works fine and it’s free, no complaints. Their app for Linux to update periodically didn’t seem to work well from my experience, I just set up a cron job to do it instead.
You could be behind CGNAT - I’m not sure the best way to tell but it could be the reason.
I would also highly recommend buying a cheap domain to use - it would be the price of a coffee per year but makes life so much easier and you don’t have to depend on duckdns. You can buy through cloudflare, porkbun or many other options which you can search for a good DDNS service to update them.
I read briefly about CGNAT, a d I think this is the case, checking the IP of my services with external services I get an IP different from the one I see in my machine. Tested more than one DDNS service and all updated my IP with the same “wrong” value.
How do I solve this? Should I contact my ISP and hope they can provide a solution?
Yeah, first try your ISP to see if you can get a dynamic or fixed IP instead. Check if their website/FAQ mentions dynamic IP or cgnat. They might outright reject it, or try to upgrade you to an extortionate business package though. I signed up for my service and checked the cgnat before signing up but they hadn’t got around to updating their website that they changed their policy. After the surprise of being behind cgnat and after screenshotting their own website, I complained and hit upgraded to a higher level package for free.
You can use tailscale to get around it, but then you need to install it on all devices and login. You can use cloudflare tunnels and think you can set it to not require login for some services. Both rely on third parties. Both are also safer than exposing directly to the public internet.
If you want full control, you have to rent a cheap vps and setup a tunnel between that and your home server, then use the public IP of the vps for your services. Wireguard is probably the best choice for VPN. You could try pangolin, which is an open source cloudflare tunnel so is more complicated than a VPN but also includes a reverse proxy.
CGNAT does have a designated range by spec. 100.64.0.0/10, which covers addresses from 100.64.0.0 to 100.127.255.255. Technically they could be using any other private address space but it would be very uncommon in a modern ISP.
I didn’t know that, thanks for sharing
i am using https://freedns.afraid.org/ for over a decade now and problems occured less than 5 times over that period. all others i ever tried were worse over time.
My Domain registrar has a reverse DNS service included.
I have been using duckdns for a few years without issues. It should be simple enough , just set up a cron job with your details as listed on their site where you configure it. This keeps your dns entry up to date.
