denyerec.co.uk

There’s a handy service called DynDNS that lets you give a static name to a dynamic IP. Handy for have-a-go heroes hosting websites from home.
Anyhow, to auto-update the IP stored by DynDNS regularly, the use of some client software is advised. Enter DDClient, which happens to run on Ubuntu.

Now, for anyone who’s having trouble getting ddclient to run on Ubuntu in that it’s not picking up their external IP properly, the fix is simple. All you have to do is replace the following line in your /etc/ddclient.conf file :

use=if , if=web

With the following:

use=web , web=dyndns

You can also obtain some information running ddclient -query from your console.

What this does it tell ddclient not to use a network interface (if) but to use the web, and then tells it which web service to use (dyndns). If you leave it to the defaults it’ll just pull the IP from whichever network interface it’s bound to, typically eth0 by default.