namecheap-ddns-go

namecheap-ddns-go

A namecheap dynamic DNS service written in Go.

Why

There are many namecheap-based ddns updater services that can be easily found on github and other repo-services. I made this because I have multiple domains and I wanted something that would support an arbitrary number of different domains and hosts each with different ddns tokens.

Thanks

I lifted logic/ideas/inspiration/code from the following repositories. Both of these tools work perfectly. I wanted to be able to update multiple domains at once.

• https://github.com/nickjer/namecheap-ddns (rust)
• https://github.com/Henelik/ddns-go (golang)

Config

A yaml file (defaults to: /etc/namecheap-ddns-go.yaml) that looks like:

configs: # an array, allows updating multiple domains' subdomains' ip addresses
  - domain: "example0.com" # the domain to update
    subdomains: ["*", "@", "www"] # array of hosts to update
    token: "abc123" # namecheap ddns token. See: Namecheap -> Domain list -> <choose a domain> -> Advanced DNS -> Dynamic DNS -> Dynamic DNS Password
    # ip: "1.1.1.1" # OPTIONAL ip address to set the subdomain(s).domain. Defaults to the ip making this request
  - domain: "example0.net"
    subdomains: ["host1", "host2"]
    token: "xyz321"
     # ip: "1.1.1.1" # OPTIONAL ip address to set the subdomain(s).domain. Defaults to the ip making this request

Linux - systemd

If you want to set this up as a service you will need to create a service file and corresponding timer.

An example_namecheap-ddns-go.yaml file has been included. Make a copy of example_namecheap-ddns-go.yaml eg: namecheap-ddns-go.yaml and change it to suit your domain setup. Then, copy the file to /etc/namecheap-ddns-go.yaml.

Be sure to chmod 600 /etc/namecheap-ddns-go.yaml as it contains your namecheap ddns token(s).

NOTE: This repo's .gitignore is set to ignore namecheap-ddns-go.yaml to prevent accidentally storing your namecheap ddns token in source control.

1. Create the service itself that updates your subdomains:

   # /etc/systemd/system/namecheap-ddns-go.service
   
   [Unit]
   Description=Update DDNS records for Namecheap
   After=network-online.target
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   Environment=NAMECHEAP_DDNS_CONFIG=/etc/namecheap-ddns-go.yaml
   ExecStart=/path/to/namecheap-ddns-go
   User=<USER>
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=default.target
   

   Be sure to fill in the correct path to your binary as well as the environment variables.

2. Note that the super secret token is in the /etc/namecheap-ddns-go.yaml file, so we should set restrictive permissions:

   sudo chmod 600 /etc/namecheap-ddns-go.yaml
   

3. Create the timer that runs this service:

   # /etc/systemd/system/namecheap-ddns-go.timer
   
   [Unit]
   Description=Run DDNS update every 15 minutes
   Requires=namecheap-ddns-go.service
   
   [Timer]
   Unit=namecheap-ddns-go.service
   OnUnitInactiveSec=15m
   AccuracySec=1s
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=timers.target
   

4. Now we reload the daemon with the new services and start them:

   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   sudo systemctl start namecheap-ddns-go.service namecheap-ddns-go.timer
   

You can view the logs from the service with the following command:

sudo journalctl -u namecheap-ddns-go.service

There is an example namecheap-ddns-go.service and namecheap-ddns-go.timer file in this repo. Note you must change the USER in namecheap-ddns-go.service.