os-ddclient needs forced update interval setting

[olmari]

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Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Our dynamic dns (dy.fi) provider expires the domain name "lease" in 7 days if it's not force updated before that. Currently there seems not to be any setting for os-ddclient to make that happen and my dns leases just expire.

Describe the solution you'd like In the ddclient account settings (or global settings if per account is impossible) have "force update interval" field that takes time interval as input, either just seconds, or number and dropdown to choose unit (secs, hours, days), and when time is due, fire the ddns update link unconditionally.

Describe alternatives you've considered I don't think there exist much alternatives for this. Forced update is needed by plenty providers so they don't hold abandonded domain names indefinitely.

Additional context I know similar ticket is https://github.com/opnsense/plugins/issues/2862 by someone else but it was deemed not following template so I decided to make proper one, and also slightly different take, time is factor on mine.

[Bubbgump209]

I'll plus one this. The setting does exist as the client will update at 25 days if there has not been an IP change. See here for where the settings exist in the upstream under 'service-common-defaults'. It appears the setting just needs to be exposed at the global and item level. In the meantime you can likely hand edit the config.

[olmari]

ddclient 1.8 which is available on latest opnsense has now this on changelog:

• Add a force action available via cron

but at cron in web-ui such option still isn't available on the list, and I think there is no "parameter" to give, as https://github.com/opnsense/plugins/blob/stable/22.1/dns/ddclient/src/opnsense/service/conf/actions.d/actions_ddclient.conf lists force as separate action from restart.

So it seems we're nearly there, but last step is missing (actual defined cron job).

[AdSchellevis]

System: ->Settings:-> Cron [+]

[olmari]

I see that option, but it doesn't force update anything, neither does applying parameter "force" there.. One can restart the service as many times as one wants to, but it only says "no need to" in logs. There is indeed new "force" directive in mentioned link that defines ddclient daemon "options", but it is separate from restart :)

[fichtner]

If „ddclient -force“ doesn’t do what you expect I’m not sure what we can do about it.

[olmari]

Manually running ddclient -force withing ssh console works, so far I haven't managed to make same happen within web-ui, be it stupid PEBKAC or not.

root@router:~ # ddclient -verbose
SUCCESS:  <xxx>.dy.fi: skipped: IP address was already set to <y.y.y.y>.
root@router:~ # ddclient -verbose -force
INFO:     forcing update of <xxx>.dy.fi.
INFO:     setting IP address to <y.y.y.y> for <xxx>.dy.fi
UPDATE:   updating <xxx>.dy.fi
CONNECT:  www.dy.fi
CONNECTED:  using SSL
SENDING:  GET /nic/update?system=dyndns&hostname=<xxx>.dy.fi&myip=<y.y.y.y> HTTP/1.0
SENDING:   Host: www.dy.fi
SENDING:   Authorization: Basic <pw>
SENDING:   User-Agent: ddclient/3.9.1
SENDING:   Connection: close
SENDING:   
SENDING:   
RECEIVE:  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
RECEIVE:  Server: nginx/1.10.3 (Ubuntu)
RECEIVE:  Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2022 21:30:47 GMT
RECEIVE:  Content-Type: text/plain;charset=UTF-8
RECEIVE:  Connection: close
RECEIVE:  Last-Modified: Sat, 09 Jul 2022 21:30:47 GMT
RECEIVE:  Cache-Control: no-cache
RECEIVE:  Pragma: no-cache
RECEIVE:  
RECEIVE:  good <y.y.y.y>
SUCCESS:  updating <xxx>.dy.fi: good: IP address set to <y.y.y.y>

[fichtner]

Forgotten apply in cron GUI. If you run „configctl ddclient force“ and it works that would show it‘s the cron setup, otherwise another issue.

the no update message probably comes from the other ddclient running in the background.

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[uke75]

Tried to setup cron job for ddclient with force option, which didn't work, but I noticed that it will set following line to cron job for nobody:

59 13 * * * /usr/local/sbin/configctl -d ddclient restart force

So, I think the restart parameter is run first and force will be omitted. Should there be another option in the web UI for setting custom parameters?

[olmari]

Indeed me neither have gotten this to work from WebUI :/

[fichtner]

The cron job is "Force ddclient update". It's not so complicated really.

[uke75]

OK, I see. Definitely it would be simple, if that cron job would be available. At least in my system it is not:

Type	opnsense
	Version	22.7.6
	Architecture	amd64
	Flavour	OpenSSL
	Commit	2eef9015b
	Mirror	https://pkg.opnsense.org/FreeBSD:13:amd64/22.7
	Repositories	OPNsense
	Updated on	Fri Oct 14 19:58:35 EEST 2022

[fichtner]

Fair enough, typo then https://github.com/opnsense/plugins/commit/0fff7f0581c