dynamic DNS update

A handy script for updating DNS of a domain in Google Cloud.

Needed a way to access a system that has its address dynamically assigned via DHCP. Then I remembered that I could just use my Google domain to get that address via DNS. Google offers an easy way of updating any host in your domain via REST. All I needed was a little script to grab the current IP and push it using their API.

Thus dyndns.sh.

#!/bin/bash

# Usage: $0 [--force [<IP>]]

# Create a file called $DYNDNSINFO that has the
# dns host and access info. Example:
#
# # https://domains.google.com/m/registrar/flaviof.dev/dns
# USERNAME='flaviof'
# PASSWORD='superSecret'
# HOST='rh.flaviof.dev'

DYNDNSINFO='../.dyndnsauth'
#set -o xtrace
set -o errexit

function get_device() {
    ip route show default 2>/dev/null | grep 'default via ' | grep -oP "(?<= dev )[^ ]+" | head -1
}

function get_ip() {
    DEV=${1:-'bridge0'}
    ip -4 addr show $DEV 2>/dev/null | grep -oP "(?<=inet ).*(?=/)" | head -1
}

function update_dns() {
    USERNAME=$1
    PASSWORD=$2
    HOST=$3
    IP=$4

    wget --quiet \
     --user ${USERNAME} \
     --password ${PASSWORD} \
     --method POST \
     --header 'User-Agent: wget' \
     --header 'cache-control: no-cache' \
     --output-document \
     - "https://domains.google.com/nic/update?hostname=${HOST}&myip=${IP}"
    echo ''
}

DEV=$(get_device)
IP=$(get_ip $DEV)
cd "$(dirname $0)"
source ${DYNDNSINFO}
[ -n "${USERNAME}" ] || { >&2 echo "no USERNAME, no deal"; exit 1; }
[ -n "${PASSWORD}" ] || { >&2 echo "no PASSWORD, no deal"; exit 2; }
[ -n "${HOST}" ] || { >&2 echo "no HOST, no deal"; exit 3; }
[ -n "${IP}" ] || { >&2 echo "no ip, no deal"; exit 4; }

# check if this is needed at all by doing a dns lookup
if [ "$1" == "--force" ] || [ "$1" == "-f" ]; then
    CURR_DNS_IP=''
    [ -n "$2" ] && IP="$2"
else
    CURR_DNS_IP=$(dig ${HOST} +short 2>/dev/null)
fi

echo "x${CURR_DNS_IP}" | grep --quiet "${IP}" && \
    echo "${HOST} is ${IP} already: noop" || \
    update_dns ${USERNAME} ${PASSWORD} ${HOST} ${IP}

Then, I created file ../.dyndnsauth as mentioned in the usage above and added this to cron:

$ crontab -l
MAILTO=""
*/20 * * * * /home/ff/bin/dyndns.sh >/dev/null 2>&1 ||:

The function get_device is handy for getting the interface that my system is using to reach external networks. And get_ip is handy for getting the IP address on that device. Notice that I took a shortcut for cases when there are more than one by grabbing the first choice.

If this is useful to you, put it in your path. And feel free to share it with your geek friends. :)