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ddns-updater (Dynamic DNS)

Self-Hosting & Servers 2026-08-28
Part of the Networking & Infrastructure series: See all networking docs

ddns-updater (Dynamic DNS)

Purpose: Keeps your DNS records updated when your home/server IP changes. Polls your current public IP on a schedule and updates records via the APIs of 30+ providers — Cloudflare, Namecheap, DuckDNS, Gandi, Porkbun, Hetzner, and more. Essential if you're self-hosting from a residential or dynamic-IP connection without a static IP.

# ~/ddns-updater/compose.yaml
services:
  ddns-updater:
    image: qmcgaw/ddns-updater:latest
    ports:
      - 127.0.0.1:8000:8000
    volumes:
      - /home/user/ddns-updater/data:/updater/data:Z
    environment:
      PERIOD: 5m
      UPDATE_COOLDOWN_PERIOD: 5m
      PUBLICIP_FETCHERS: all
      LOG_LEVEL: info
      TZ: Asia/Kolkata
    restart: unless-stopped
cd ~/ddns-updater && podman-compose up -d
Configure providers in /home/user/ddns-updater/data/config.json
{
  "settings": [
    {
      "provider": "cloudflare",
      "zone_identifier": "your-zone-id",
      "domain": "home.example.com",
      "host": "@",
      "ttl": 300,
      "proxied": false,
      "token": "your-cloudflare-api-token",
      "ip_version": "ipv4"
    },
    {
      "provider": "duckdns",
      "domain": "myhome.duckdns.org",
      "token": "your-duckdns-token",
      "ip_version": "ipv4"
    }
  ]
}

Access the status dashboard at http://localhost:8000 — shows last update time, current IP, and success/failure per record.

Caddy:

ddns.home.local { tls internal; reverse_proxy localhost:8000 }
Tip: Pair with a short TTL (300 seconds) on the DNS record so clients pick up the new IP quickly after a change.

See Also