Does the White Russian 0.9 DynDNS client suck just as much?

VirginSnow at vfemail.net VirginSnow at vfemail.net
Thu Jun 14 14:30:19 EDT 2007


> Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 18:49:07 -0400
> From: "Ben Scott" <dragonhawk at gmail.com>

> On 5/14/07, VirginSnow at vfemail.net <VirginSnow at vfemail.net> wrote:
> > OpenWRT was recommended as a way of getting around using Linksys's
> > broken DynDNS client.  But this system seems just as broken!
> 
>   I suspect something *is* broken in the OpenWRT DDNS subsystem.  But
> I was able to get the symptom (i.e., DynDNS warning about my expiring
> DNS entry) to go away by fiddling with it.  I've been too lazy/busy to
> dig into root cause yet.  I wasn't sure if the problem wasn't just me
> until now.  I guess it's not just me.
> 
>   Anyway, here's what I did.  I logged into a root shell on the
> LinkSys box.  I edited/created the /etc/ez-ipupdate/ez-ipupdate.conf
> file to look like this:
> 
> interface=vlan1
> service-type=dyndns
> user=notmyusername:notmypassword
> pid-file=/var/run/ez-ipupdate.pid
> cache-file=/etc/ez-ipupdate/ez-ipupdate.cache
> host=notmyhostname.dnsalias.org

The problem here seems to be that the ez-ipupdate package is
integrated with neither the webif nor the rest of OpenWRT.  When the
ez-ipupdate package is installed, it installs the config file as
/etc/ez-ipupdate.conf.  The contents of the file in no way reflect the
settings in the webif, and the cache-file setting at the bottom
conflicts with where OpenWRT stores the cache file.  This is ironic
(you might say insidiously misleading) because this setting is in the
section of the file labeled "Do not change the lines below".  Just rm
the whole friggin file: rm /etc/ez-ipupdate.conf.  You have to create
you own /etc/ez-ipupdate/ez-ipupdate.conf file using the output from:

# ez-ipupdate --help              # command usage help
# echo help | ez-ipupdate -c -    # config file help

Looking at /etc/init.d/S52ez-ipupdate, it looks like putting the
following in /etc/ez-ipupdate/ez-ipupdate.conf should suffice:

interface=vlan1
service-type=dyndns
user=notmyusername:notmypassword
host=notmyhostname.dnsalias.org
max-interval=2160000

Creating this file and manually executing 

# /etc/init.d/S52ez-ipupdate start

at least causes messages concerning successful update to appear in the
system log and webif DynDNS configuration page.

Note that the settings on the DynDNS page of the webif DON"T ACTUALLY
CONFIGURE ez-ipupdate!  Only the Enable/Disable switch on that page
has any effect on real life events.  All the other settings (service
type, account name, password, hostname, update interval) just hang out
in nvram and are never actually used!

Configuring ez-ipupdate on OpenWRT's White Russian 0.9 is about as
counterintuitive as it could be.  ez-ipupdate (though it offers a -q
"quiet" switch) doesn't offer any kind of debugging output.  It does
write limited satus information to the syslog.  But, by default on
OpenWRT, does not syslog to /var/log/messages (or any file under
/var/log!).  Instead, to see the syslog, you have to view the
appropriate page on the webif.  Even there, the information supplied
is extremely limited!

So, without access to any debugging output, I'm not even sure if what
I've done will convince ez-ipupdate to update my DynDNS on schedule.
I gues I'll find out in 5 days. :)

> > # date; uptime
> > Mon May 14 09:18:51 EDT 2007
> >  09:18:51 up 21:16, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> >
> > I didn't reboot the box at all yesterday, so the 21:16 is wrong nonetheless.
> 
>   I suspect the uptime is correct, and the box has only been up for 21
> hours.  The real question is: Why did the box reboot?  The nominal

I suspect that OpenWRT automagically rebooted me (without notice)
after $arbitrary_configuration_change.  OpenWRT seems to like doing
that.

>   On a mostly unrelated note, DynDNS emails me when my hostname is
> about to expire, so I've never lost the name due to any issues with
> LinkSys's firmware, OpenWRT's firmware, or anything else.  I've always
> had a chance to tweak things first.  You may want to look into getting
> the same email warning for yourself.

Yeah, I get that warning also.  However, when you *think* you've
gotten DynDNS configured but really *haven't*, your hostname is just
as expired!  It would be nice if they mailed such warnings a couple
more times, i.e. daily.


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