You need your domain name to point to your IP address. This is done by visiting an “Update URL” (sometimes “Dynamic URL”). Go to your domain provider’s website and find the URL for your domain. The random value at the end is your secret API key. It is recommended you use two ddns urls one for a wildcard and the other for the root domain. Do not share it and do not save it in git.

Example update URLs:

somesite.com - https://ipv4.cloudns.net/api/dynamicURL/?q=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890987654321zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba
*.somesite.com - https://ipv4.cloudns.net/api/dynamicURL/?q=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890987654321zyxwvutsrqponmlkji5f3434fd

Edit config.yml. Go to the ddns section, change enabled to true, and add your update URL. Ignore the IP value - LochNAS will populate it automatically.

    ddns:
        ip: 0.0.0.0
        enabled: true
        url:
            - https://ipv4.cloudns.net/api/dynamicURL/?q=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890987654321zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba
            - https://ipv4.cloudns.net/api/dynamicURL/?q=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890987654321zyxwvutsrqponmlkji5f3434fd
        notification:
            enabled: false
            service: telegram

Then run

service lochnas restart

Done! LochNAS will automatically update your DDNS every few minutes.

Alternative #1: cron #

You can use cron to update the DDNS. Edit the crontab file with crontab -e. Add a command that visits your Update URL like this:

0 6 * * * wget --output-document=/dev/null --quiet 'https://dnsprovider.com/updateurl?key=somekey'
0 6 * * * wget --output-document=/dev/null --quiet 'https://dnsprovider.com/updateurl?key=somekey2'

Alternative #2: Docker (figure it out) #

If your DNS provider doesn’t provide Update URLs then I recommend searching the Docker repository for a DDNS updater. Add the Docker image using Portainer or make your own docker-templates folder for a custom app. We can’t help you much here.