Dynamic DNS services allow people with a dynamic IP address from there ISP (like me) to access resources using a name instead of by IP address. Most routers have support for updating dynamic DNS services, but are usually limited to one service. I use DynDNS (free, which is no longer offered) for this type of access. I wanted to switch my DNS servers to OpenDNS and while they don’t require the same type of updates like DynDNS to work, they offer some interesting features like stats and category filtering using a dynamic DNS type service. The problem is my router only support updates for one dynamic DNS service and it was already updating DynDNS. Luckily, OpenDNS also runs a service called DNS-o-Matic which will update multiple dynamic services at once. Here are some quick steps to set this up on DD-WRT.
Steps:
First, go to DNS-O-Matic and setup an account. This should also work as an OpenDNS account so you can use the same log-in on both services.
On the account home screen, add accounts for any dynamic DNS accounts you use. In my example I just have OpenDNS and DynDNS setup. There are a lot of services that DNS-O-Matic will support, they currently have 29 listed on their supported services list.
Now we need to setup the router to update DNS-O-Matic. I use DD-WRT v24-sp2 (13064 10/10/09) on my router and it supports updating a Dynamic DNS service. On my router this is under the Setup -> DDNS tab. For my version I have to setup DNS-O-Matic as a custom DDNS service with the following fields.
DDNS Service: Custom
Do not use external ip check: No
DYNDNS Server: updates.dnsomatic.com
User Name: <your DNS-O-Matic/OpenDNS user name>
Password: <your DNS-O-Matic/OpenDNS user name>
Host Name: all.dnsomatic.com
URL: /nic/update?hostname=
Force Update Interval: 2
I shortened the update interval from it’s default (10 days) because I got a couple of times where DNS-O-Matic wasn’t up to date with my IP address. If your router has a setup for DNS-O-Matic, by all means use that instead of creating a custom setup, I don’t have that option with my version of DD-WRT. I hope this helps get Dynamic DNS services setup.
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