(yet another) Dynamic DNS thing for tinydns (djbdns)
Tried to find any simple script to update tinydns (part of djbdns) zones that'd be better than ssh dns_update@remote_host update.sh, but failed - they all seem to be hacky php scripts, doomed to run behind httpds, send passwords in url, query random "myip" hosts or something like that.
What I want instead is something that won't be making http, tls or ssh connections (and stirring all the crap behind these), but would rather just send udp or even icmp pings to remotes, which should be enough for update, given source IPs of these packets and some authentication payload.
So yep, wrote my own scripts for that - tinydns-dynamic-dns-updater project.
Tool sends UDP packets with 100 bytes of "( key_id || timestamp ) || Ed25519_sig" from clients, authenticating and distinguishing these server-side by their signing keys ("key_id" there is to avoid iterating over them all, checking which matches signature).
Server zone files can have "# dynamic: ts key1 key2 ..." comments before records (separated from static records after these by comments or empty lines), which says that any source IPs of packets with correct signatures (and more recent timestamps) will be recorded in A/AAAA records (depending on source AF) that follow instead of what's already there, leaving anything else in the file intact.
Zone file only gets replaced if something is actually updated and it's possible to use dynamic IP for server as well, using dynamic hostname on client (which is resolved for each delayed packet).
Lossy nature of UDP can be easily mitigated by passing e.g. "-n5" to the client script, so it'd send 5 packets (with exponential delays by default, configurable via --send-delay), plus just having the thing on fairly regular intervals in crontab.
Putting server script into socket-activated systemd service file also makes all daemon-specific pains like using privileged ports (and most other security/access things), startup/daemonization, restarts, auto-suspend timeout and logging woes just go away, so there's --systemd flag for that too.
Given how easy it is to run djbdns/tinydns instance, there really doesn't seem to be any compelling reason not to use your own dynamic dns stuff for every single machine or device that can run simple python scripts.
Github link: tinydns-dynamic-dns-updater