Dynamic DNS issues: lost cached IPs, taking very long to force update, updating twice etc.

pfpv

I'd like to point out some issues with Dynamic DNS that have existed for 2-3 years maybe. Currently I am on 2.8.2 CE. In general "it works" but:

When I create a new DynDNS entry all other entries lose their cached IPs and show 0.0.0.0 in red in status.
When I edit an entry, don't change anything and click "Save & Force Update" (because of #1) it takes a good minute to process and I get two push notifications in Pushover about DynDNS update. So, it performs two updates in a row for the same record. This happened with Cloudflare, NameCheap and Porkbun. I assume it's a system-wide issue. The time it takes to update and refresh the page is so long that sometimes I think that pfSense froze or crashed but it never happened.
In previous versions of pfSense there was a global option to refresh records in a number of days even if the IP didn't change. I set it in earlier version (don't remember what version it was) to 25 days. In 2.8.1 I don't see this option anymore but my records are still refreshed about every 25 days even if my IP doesn't change. I get Pushover notifications. I guess it doesn't hurt but my current provider doesn't require periodic refresh, so I could disable this option but it's not there.

I wonder if someone could look into DynDNS in more details. I feel like it was left alone because it generally works (it does) but there are some minors bugs.

Gertjan

@pfpv said in Dynamic DNS issues: lost cached IPs, taking very long to force update, updating twice etc.:

I wonder if someone could look into DynDNS in more details ...

I'll show it here for easy access.

This file is present on every pfSense. Sure enough, not everybody uses DynDNS, but I do think that many admins that want to have a remote access for admin purposes use DyNDNS.
After all, many (again) don't have a static WAN IP.
This means that the code shown is executed on all the pfSense installation every time a WAN IP changes.
I guess you understand what I mean : if 'dyndns.class' would file for all ? most ? some of us all the time, there would be failures all the time everywhere. People wouldn't be able to contact their pfSense anymore ... (WAN IP is wrong) and you would see thousands of 'angry' posts here on the forum per hour ( !! )
Guess what ? I saw none.
Which implies that it does work.
Just not for you.

On the other hand, look again at the https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense/blob/master/src/etc/inc/dyndns.class page. You can see the History of that file. This file gets edited rather often, as all these dyndns operators do change their parameters ones in a while.
Check the forum - this forum part. Last year, porkbun and NameCheap did change their dyndns access parameters, and they do so without informing the clients ( why should they ? It's free ^^ ).
So, yes, things can break, and it won't take days before some one would post here about it.
For all 3 to break at the same moment ? Hummmm ....

I don't use dyndns anymore myself but the other one "RFC 2136" which is the first, 'original' dyndns as I use my own DNS name servers.
What I do know : it takes mere seconds to execute, as I execute it against my own server, and I don't have to throttle this access, as all 'private' companies have to as they have to handle "millions of dyndns updates" from 'everybody.

@pfpv said in Dynamic DNS issues: lost cached IPs, taking very long to force update, updating twice etc.:

When I edit ....

Don't forget the magic option :

as you are wondering why and what takes so much time ?
You've thought about asking pfSense to show you why ?
with this option set, go dydns logs and see what happens when, what errors out, and how long it took.
When you see an issue, you'll know why it happened.

@pfpv said in Dynamic DNS issues: lost cached IPs, taking very long to force update, updating twice etc.:

3 In previous versions of pfSense

It's still there.
Install the Cron pfSense package.
Then, go here : Services > Cron > Settings

so every first of the month, dyndns is executed.
This doesn't mean the WAN IP is updated 'no matter what'.
The current WAN IP is determined with Services > Dynamic DNS > Check IP Services = http://checkip.dyndns.org - click on the link and you see what happens.
If the obtained IP is the same as the cache file IP, the cache file's time stamp is updated, the IP stays unchanged. And NO remote update is performed, as this wasn't needed.
The file is here : /cf/conf/, mine is called dyndns_wan_rfc2136_'home.bhf.tld'_188.x.x.x.cache. It contains the cached IP, and a time stamp.
Updating IP at a dyndns supplier with a not changed IP is considered abusive, and the reaction of the dyndns supplier could be : you're blocked or banned. This seems over exaggerated, but they have good reasons to act like that.

@pfpv said in Dynamic DNS issues: lost cached IPs, taking very long to force update, updating twice etc.:

I feel like it was left alone

I think it's one of the most executed scripts on pfSense ... ;)