NAME
ddns3 - ddns.nu remote update client
SYNOPSIS
ddns3 --user user --pass password [ options ] command ...
DESCRIPTION
ddns3 updates IP-Handles on the ddns.nu remote update server. This
allows remote automated updates rather than using the website via a
browser.
OPTIONS
--user user
Specifies the username to authenticate with.
--pass password
Specifies the password to authenticate with.
--host hostname
Override the default server hostname to connect to. The default
server hostname is ns.ddns.nu.
--port portnumber
Override the default TCP port to connect to. The default TCP
port for the ddns3 protocol is 2164
--auth authtype
Specify what type of authentication protocol to use. The
available types are: plaintext, crypt, md5, ddns, and strong.
The default type is ddns which is secure in the sense that the
username is sent in cleartext, but the password is sent hashed
in such a manner as to defeat replay attacks by utilising a salt
sent from the server.
COMMANDS
list List all IP-Handles and their current values for the account.
You may do this multiple times, for example it is perfectly
legal (and perhaps even useful) to do a list, followed by a set,
and then another list to observe the change.
set handle-name ip-value
Set an IP-Handle named handle-name to the IP value ip-value.
Similar to list you can specify as many such operations on the
command line as you wish and they will be executed in the order
specified.
guess handle-name ip-source
Set the IP-Handle named handle-name to the IP value derived from
IP seen by the ip-source end of the update connection. The ip-
source is specified as either remote or local. Again you may
specify multiple guess commands on the command line and they
will be executed in order.
Using the local option saves you from having to specify the IP
on the command line. Local guessing usually gets the IP correct
as it takes the local address of the socket making the update
connection. With conventional routing arrangements this is
likely to be the IP you want.
However the remote option sets the IP-Handle to the IP that the
server sees the connection as originating from. This is most
useful if you are running the client from behind a NAT gateway
which itself is incapable of running the client. In this case
the IP of the NAT gateway is used, rather than the probably
martian IP of the host the client is actually executing on.
DIAGNOSTICS
Useful error messages are produced on stderr, all other runtime output
goes to stdout.
On runtime exception the return value of the process may be useful in
scripting:
-1
The usage message was generated by running the command with no
arguments.
-2
The argument parser didn’t like the command line.
-3
A connection could not be established with the update server.
-4
Authentication failed.
-5
Network errors closing the connection (these can often be
ignored).
-6
Some kind of internal logic error in the process, like a
malloc/free failure.
The process returns a positive count of the number of commands executed
on the server that generated an error, or zero on error free completion
of all commands.
BUGS
The authentication details should be read from a file to avoid their
visibility in the process list. There should be support for other ddns3
protocol primitives like MOTD and HELP for completeness. The java
implementation jddns3 does this, and is largely command line
equivalent. Short network writes are unchecked in at least one place.
AUTHOR
Alan Yates <alany@ay.com.au>
VERSION
$Id: ddns3.1,v 1.2 2003/03/20 05:21:59 alany Exp $
SEE ALSO
http://www.ddns.nu/
http://www.ddns.nu/files/ddns-v3.txt
$Date: 2003/03/20 05:21:59 $