dyndns 1.1.1

About

dyndns is a HTTP based API to dynamically update DNS records (DynDNS). It’s uses Python and the Flask web framework to accomplish this task.

Installation

Install dyndns into the directory /usr/local/share/python-virtualenv/dyndns using a virtual environment.

python3 -m venv /usr/local/share/python-virtualenv/dyndns
source /usr/local/share/python-virtualenv/dyndns/bin/activate
pip3 install dyndns

The working directory of our flask web API is in the directory /var/www/dyndns.example.com. Create a file /var/www/dyndns.example.com/dyndns.ini.

[uwsgi]
module = dyndns.webapp:app

master = true
processes = 5

socket = /var/www/dyndns.example.com/dyndns.sock
chmod-socket = 664
uid = www-data
gid = www-data
vacuum = true

die-on-term = true

Example configuration file for nginx: /etc/nginx/sites-available/dyndns.example.com.

server {
  server_name dyndns.example.com;
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;
  return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
  listen 443 ssl;
  listen [::]:443 ssl;
  server_name dyndns.example.com;
  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/dyndns.example.com/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/dyndns.example.com/privkey.pem;

  location / {
    include uwsgi_params;
    uwsgi_pass unix:/var/www/dyndns.example.com/dyndns.sock;
  }

}

/etc/systemd/system/dyndns-uwsgi.service

[Unit]
Description=uWSGI instance to serve dyndns
After=network.target

[Service]
User=www-data
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/dyndns.example.com
Environment="PATH=/usr/local/share/python-virtualenv/dyndns/bin"
ExecStart=/usr/local/share/python-virtualenv/dyndns/bin/uwsgi --ini uwsgi.ini

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Configuration

dyndns requires a configuration file in the YAML markup language.

dyndns looks on three places for its configuration. It picks the first existing configuration file and ignores the later in this order:

1. Custom path specified in the environment variable dyndns_CONFIG_FILE

2. Current working directory of the dyndns app (cwd): <cwd>/.dyndns.yml

3. /etc/dyndns.yml

---
secret: 12345678
nameserver: 127.0.0.1
dyndns_domain: dyndns.example.com
zones:
  - name: dyndns.example.com
    tsig_key: tPyvZA==

• secret: A password like secret string. The secret string has to be at least 8 characters long and only alphnumeric characters are allowed.

• nameserver: The IP address of your nameserver. Version 4 or version 6 are allowed. Use 127.0.0.1 to communicate with your nameserver on the same machine.

• dyndns_domain: The domain to serve the dyndns HTTP API. This key is only used in the usage page. Can be omitted.

• zones: At least one zone specified as a list.

  • name: The domain name of the zone, for example dyndns.example.com.

  • tsig_key: The tsig-key. Use the hmac-sha512 algorithm to generate the key: tsig-keygen -a hmac-sha512 dyndns.example.com

Usage

dyndns offers two HTTP web APIs to update DNS records. A simple and a more restricted one using only path segments and a more flexible using query strings.