GoDaddy-DDNS

DDNS-like update service for GoDaddy DNS records

Purpose

This script and service enable DDNS-like checking of the public IP address and subsequent updating of GoDaddy DNS records, and is intended for use with servers that undergo infrequent public IP address changes. The aim is to get the benefits of dynamic DNS without the need for a third-party DDNS service.

Note: The lowest value of TTL (time-to-live) that GoDaddy permits is 600 seconds (10 minutes). As a result, the old IP address may still be cached on various DNS servers for up to 10 minutes after a change is made, meaning that the site will remain temporarily unavailable at that domain. If you require lower downtime than this, please consider using a proper DDNS service such as Dynu.com.

Requirements

The script is compatible with Python >=3.4, but may be compatible with earlier versions.

External packages:

pyyaml
click
pif
godaddypy

Installation

The script can be installed for a single user if only the commandline tool is needed, but should be installed system-wide for use with the systemd service and timer.

For system-wide installation:

$ git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/N-Parsons/godaddy-ddns.git
$ cd godaddy-ddns
$ sudo pip install .

For user-only installation:

$ git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/N-Parsons/godaddy-ddns.git
$ cd godaddy-ddns
$ pip install --user .

Usage

Commandline tool

The script can be run manually by calling godaddy-ddns with the following options:

--config: Path to the configuration file (default: /etc/godaddy-ddns/config.yaml).
--force: Update the IP address regardless of the value in the cache.
--quiet: Don't print messages to stdout.
--nocolour: Don't use colour when printing to stdout.

Systemd

Two systemd files are included with this package so that the script can be scheduled to run automatically. To use these, simply copy godaddy-ddns.service and godaddy-ddns.timer to /etc/systemd/system/, then enable and start the timer.

# cp godaddy-ddns.{service,timer} /etc/systemd/system/
# systemctl enable --now godaddy-ddns.timer

Note: The systemd service assumes that the configuration file is located at /etc/godaddy-ddns/config.yaml.

Configuration options

An example configuration is avaiable in config-example.yaml.

API credentials

API keys can be generated at https://developer.godaddy.com/keys/.

The API base URL (api_base_url) may also be specified in the config file if you want to use the testing environment (OTE). Note: I have not tested this functionality, but I've included it in case others want to try it (note: you will need a separate API key and secret for the OTE).

Targets (domains you want to update)

The targets are a list of domains and aliases to be updated. Each element of this list consists of a mandatory domain and optional alias; both domain and alias may be single values or lists. If no alias is specified, "@" is assumed - this is how GoDaddy designates the lack of a subdomain, so the IP address for example.com will be updated.

A complete set of example targets are given in config-example.yaml.

Specifying non-existent aliases is silently tolerated by the API and thus also by this script. Non-existent domains cause a warning to be logged and printed.

Logging and caching

Paths may be set for the log and cache; setting these to "" or commenting out the entries disables them. If the configured paths don't exist, the script will create them.

While caching can be disabled, it is strongly advised that you enable it. When the cache is disabled, the script will make API requests to set the IP address regardless of whether the IP address is already up-to-date - doing this repeatedly is unnecessary and could be considered abusive.

License

This project is made available under the MIT license.