Cloudflare DDNS configuration for Unifi USG

Last updated on June 3, 2019

I’ve recently made the switch to using Cloudflare as my DDNS provider. Unfortunately, Ubiquiti has not done a good job of expanding and updating its DDNS providers in the Unifi Controller.

Update USG ddclient

The USG firmware is using an older version of the ddclient which is no longer supported by cloudflare. So, in order to get it to connect, you need to upgrade to the newer version. Luckily, @troyfontaine has done all the heavy lifting and shared it with the world. Go buy him a beer. You can perform the individual steps as shown in the script or execute the thing with curl.

#!/bin/bash
# Run this script as sudo

# Specify the repo and the location of the apt sources list
DEB_REPO="deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main # wheezy #"
APT_SRC="/etc/apt/sources.list"

# Add deb repo to sources list if it isn't there
grep -q -F "$DEB_REPO" "$APT_SRC" || echo "$DEB_REPO" >> "$APT_SRC"

# Run Apt update
apt-get update; apt-get -y install libdata-validate-ip-perl

# Download new ddclient and replace the existing version
cd /tmp
curl -L -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ddclient/ddclient/master/ddclient
cp /usr/sbin/ddclient /usr/sbin/ddclient.bkp
cp ddclient /usr/sbin/ddclient
chmod +x /usr/sbin/ddclient

# Tell the USG to update configuration and then display the status
# Run the following manually to update your DDNS record:
# update dns dynamic interface eth2 && sleep 20 && show dns dynamic status

#!/bin/bash

# Run this script as sudo

# Specify the repo and the location of the apt sources list

DEB_REPO="deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main # wheezy #"

APT_SRC="/etc/apt/sources.list"

# Add deb repo to sources list if it isn't there

grep -q -F "$DEB_REPO" "$APT_SRC" || echo "$DEB_REPO" >> "$APT_SRC"

# Run Apt update

apt-get update; apt-get -y install libdata-validate-ip-perl

# Download new ddclient and replace the existing version

cd /tmp

curl -L -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ddclient/ddclient/master/ddclient

cp /usr/sbin/ddclient /usr/sbin/ddclient.bkp

cp ddclient /usr/sbin/ddclient

chmod +x /usr/sbin/ddclient

# Tell the USG to update configuration and then display the status

# Run the following manually to update your DDNS record:

# update dns dynamic interface eth2 && sleep 20 && show dns dynamic status

curl https://gist.githubusercontent.com/troyfontaine/7e6f93e32621177fc9a94e823adc52b5/raw/fix_ddns.sh | sudo bash

1	curl https://gist.githubusercontent.com/troyfontaine/7e6f93e32621177fc9a94e823adc52b5/raw/fix_ddns.sh \| sudo bash

Testing the configuration

Before permanently making this configuration, I wanted to test my settings. Below are the configuration commands used to enable this by SSH’ing into your USG. The zone should match the zone name in CF and the password is the API Zone ID that’s listed on the overview page.

set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare host-name khaz.me
set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare login my@email.com
set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare options zone=khaz.me
set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare password 4jdGtFnlBwuneXmv6mdvc2nbhm4DZLYY
set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare protocol cloudflare
set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare server api.cloudflare.com/client/v4
set service dns dynamic interface eth2 web dyndns

set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare host-name khaz.me

set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare login my@email.com

set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare options zone=khaz.me

set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare password 4jdGtFnlBwuneXmv6mdvc2nbhm4DZLYY

set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare protocol cloudflare

set service dns dynamic interface eth2 service cloudflare server api.cloudflare.com/client/v4

set service dns dynamic interface eth2 web dyndns

If you are unfamiliar how to do this, you can learn more from Ubiquiti’s instructions for EdgeRouters which use the same tools. I like to use the commit-confirm 5 option in case I’ve messed up any entries through the CLI. Keep in mind, this configuration will not survive re-provisioning of the USG from the controller as the controller does not have these settings.

poldim@USGPro:~$ update dns dynamic interface eth2 && sleep 20 && show dns dynamic status
interface    : eth2
ip address   : 66.119.21.125
host-name    : khaz.me
last update  : Fri May 31 13:40:04 2019
update-status: good

poldim@USGPro:~$ update dns dynamic interface eth2 && sleep 20 && show dns dynamic status

interface : eth2

ip address : 66.119.21.125

host-name : khaz.me

last update : Fri May 31 13:40:04 2019

update-status: good

Permanent Configuration

After having my settings on for a week, I decided to configure these settings. You will need to follow the USG Advanced Configuration process as outlined by Ubiquiti.

{
  "service": {
    "dns": {
      "dynamic": {
        "interface": {
          "eth2": {
            "service": {
              "cloudflare": {
                "host-name": [
                  "khaz.me"
                ],
                "login": "my@email.com",
                "options": [
                  "zone=khaz.me"
                ],
                "password": "4jdGtFnlBwuneXmv6mdvc2nbhm4DZLYY",
                "protocol": "cloudflare",
                "server": "api.cloudflare.com/client/v4"
              }
            },
            "web": "dyndns"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

{

"service": {

"dns": {

"dynamic": {

"interface": {

"eth2": {

"service": {

"cloudflare": {

"host-name": [

"khaz.me"

"login": "my@email.com",

"options": [

"zone=khaz.me"

"password": "4jdGtFnlBwuneXmv6mdvc2nbhm4DZLYY",

"protocol": "cloudflare",

"server": "api.cloudflare.com/client/v4"

}

"web": "dyndns"

}

12 Comments

Anonymous

Will this automatically update weekly or does a crown job need to be configured?

# December 6, 2020 Log in to Reply
- DK
  
  No it’s part of the DDNS service
  
  # March 11, 2021 Log in to Reply
Anonymous

Great write up. Along with a couple other guides online, I was able to get Cloudflare DynDNS configured via JSON file on my UniFi.
However, it isn’t auto-updating. Works fine when I run the command to update, but doesn’t seem to run again unless I do it manually.
Is there a way to configure ddclient to run on a schedule that I’ve missed somewhere?

# January 14, 2020 Log in to Reply
Jon Irish

I went ahead and tried this today. I get as far as trying to run the “set service dns dynamic interface” commands. On my UGS 3P, I don’t have “set service” as an option. If I do a “set ?” the only options I get are “date” and “system”. Without these set, i get errors when running “update dns dynamic interface eth2 && sleep 20 && show dns dynamic status” about ddns not being configured.

Thanks
Jon

# October 2, 2019 Log in to Reply
- DK
  
  Are you in the configure mode?
  
  # October 2, 2019 Log in to Reply
  - Jon Irish
    
    Wow, I can’t believe that I forgot to go into config mode (DUH). It’s been a long day 😉 So, after going into config mode, the set statements were accepted w/o any errors, but the update was not successful:
    interface : eth0
    ip address :
    host-name : irishtech.org
    last update : Wed Dec 31 18:00:00 1969
    update-status: noconnect
    
    Are there any log files available that might explain where my issue is?
    
    Thanks!
    Jon
    
    # October 2, 2019 Log in to Reply
Ant

Well my WAN is on eth0, so thats the interface I use. But after forcing the update and running a status (with the sleep 20 inbetween) I get:

interface : eth0
ip address :
host-name :mydomain.tld
last update : Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969
update-status: noconnect

It’s really strange that it works with direct config and not via the json config. I’ve triple checked the JSON, permissions/ownership of the JSON file, and compared show configuration between it being applied directly and from my Cloud Key and they are identical. It’s baffling.

# June 4, 2019 Log in to Reply
- DK
  
  Yea, that is baffling. Does it provision fine with the JSON file’s config? Have you tried monitoring the logs when you provision it to see if anything weird pops up?
  
  # June 4, 2019 Log in to Reply
  - Ant
    
    I have, I’ve run show log tail, which has the entires about the ip='' and skipping update from to [my WAN ip address]. But other than the skip thats normal from what I’ve read. I also tried doing a /usr/sbin/ddclient -query and didn’t get anything useful there either. I did find that I had to upgrade ddclient to 3.9.x to get even the confure commands to work, but that is still in place. At this point my API access for Namecheap has gone through and I think I’m just go that route.
    
    # June 4, 2019 Log in to Reply
    - DK
      
      Very odd. You could try running that curl script again and seeing if it helps anything.
      Maybe try ubnt forums as this is above my pay grade.
      
      # June 4, 2019 Log in to Reply
Ant

So this more/less works from the configure interface (i had to use custom-cloudflare as the service name and had to use my global API key as opposed to the DNS Zone Key). However, it doesnt seem to work with the config.gateway.json file to make it permanent. The settings take and are identical, but i never seems to update. Any thoughts?

# June 2, 2019 Log in to Reply
- DK
  
  So it’s working when you ssh in and commit; save but not through the controller?
  
  Whats your status output: update dns dynamic interface eth2 && sleep 20 && show dns dynamic status
  
  # June 3, 2019 Log in to Reply

Cloudflare DDNS configuration for Unifi USG

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