dyndns update problem

[t.hofmann]

The web frontend reports success on a manually initiated dydns update, actually the ip gets not updated.

This is checked via the following command line operation:

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ddns_gargoyle -C /etc/ddns_gargoyle.conf -P /etc/ddns_providers.conf -h

which returns:

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update of ddns_1 failed

The problem might be related to the setup:
The router is not directly connected to the internet but to another LAN via its WLAN-interface. The latter LAN is then connected to the internet. The dyndns-service-provider is dyndns.com.

The file

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 /etc/ddns_gargoyle.conf

contains a line:

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ip_source internet

What does that do?
What are other valid settings for that option?

Thanks and kind regards,
Thomas

[pbix]

The ddns code used by Gargoyle comes from OpenWRT. We do not mess with it really so your probably going to have to go to the openwrt.org forum to get an answer about specific options in this configuration file.

But I will say that I am not sure what you hope to accomplish with your setup. It does not sound like your Gargoyle box has a public IP address since it is behind another router you have. Without a public IP address on the Gargoyle router how can you access the Gargoyle box for the Web? What's the plan man?

I use dyndns.org myself with Gargoyle, great service.

[Eric]

pbix: Actually, that's not true.

The ddns update program is one I wrote, and is specific to Gargoyle.

Further, the ddns code OpenWrt is currently using is also a program I wrote. It's an earlier version of the ddns updater used in Gargoyle implemented in shell script instead of C. It took months to get the thing accepted into OpenWrt, and the process was so frustrating that I decided to never bother submitting anything upstream again (though anyone is free to submit my code upstream, of course -- I'm just not going to bother after my first bad experience).

So, that's why there are two different DDNS programs in OpenWrt and Gargoyle, both of which I originally created.

The "ip_source internet" line, means that it should work even given your setup. It's getting your IP from the IP exposed on the outer router, the one that is registered by a webserver if you connect to it. You can also set it to "interface", which will obtain an IP your own WAN interface, but if that interface isn't exposed (as in your case) there will be problems, so this is always set to "internet" by default.

I'm not sure why it isn't updating for you. Like pbix, I too use ddns, and I've had no problems.

[pbix]

Well I stand corrected. Still even if the ddns host gets updated correctly there are complications in forwarding ports depending on what exactly the OP intends to do.

Now that you have fessed up to being the author maybe you could tell us where the man page is on this so we can figure out what these options do

[Eric]

Well... there is no man page. A lot of the back-end options specific to Gargoyle aren't particularly well documented, because I'd rather spend time focusing on the front end interface. I'm happy to answer specific questions though.

However, I don't think changing those options will help. I really doubt it's a problem with a port not being open, since dyndns updates are done via https, over port 443. I would be very surprised if your upstream router was blocking https connections.

Three things to check:

(1)Does your password use any non-standard characters, e.g. quote characters? It could be these aren't getting saved/loaded properly.

(2) What's your update frequency set to? If you update too many times in a short period of time they will block you.

(3) On the other hand, when was the last time you did do an update? If you don't do an update at least once every 30 days, and you have a free account, they delete your account.

One other thing to try is to run the same command as before, but add the -v flag, which gives more verbose output. I've just used this for debugging, so it isn't documented anywhere.

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ddns_gargoyle -v -h -C /etc/ddns_gargoyle.conf -P /etc/ddns_providers.conf 

[SebbesApa]

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ddns_gargoyle -v -h -C /etc/ddns_gargoyle.conf -P /etc/ddns_providers.conf 

Is this debug method still valid? When i use it, the ssh-session just comes to a stand still, and i do not get any debug messages.

[FrequentlyWrong]

Eric wrote:

(1)Does your password use any non-standard characters, e.g. quote characters? It could be these aren't getting saved/loaded properly.

This was the problem for me. It would be an improvement if "non-standard" characters could be used. Eric, I'm willing to make the change myself if you think it's a good idea.