set up DDNS with ddclient & Google Domains

To set up DDNS, you should set the DDNS record on your domain name registrar first. Then send the DDNS and IP settings from your server to your domain name registrar.

To set your DDNS record on Google Domains, just follow this document.

To send the DDNS and IP settings from your server to your domain name registrar, we would use ddclient.

Since I use mac, let’s take it as an example. Using Homebrew to install it.

brew install ddclient

Let’s create a directory called `ddclient` in `/opt/homebrew/etc/` , and create `ddclient.conf` in `/opt/homebrew/etc/ddclient` .

`daemon` is to set the interval in how many seconds the ddclient would check your IP and update. Google Domains follow the `dyndns2` protocol. `server` is your domain name registrar. When you set the DDNS record on your domain name registrar, it would give you the username and password of this DNS certification. Finally, write your domain in the last line.

To set multiple domains in `ddclient.conf` , just set the different DNS settings after the previous one.

After updating the `ddclient.conf` , you should restart the ddclient. Actually, it would auto start every few minutes. You can just leave it if you are lazy.

sudo ddclient

If you use `brew` to install ddclient, it already set it started at boot.

Also, you can update your IP for your DDNS by this API.

https://username:password@domains.google.com/nic/update?hostname=subdomain.yourdomain.com&myip=1.2.3.4