Using DNS-O-Matic with HTTPS

What is DNS-O-Matic and how do I use it with HTTPS?

What is DNS-O-Matic?

DNS-O-Matic is a service that allows you to announce an update to multiple dynamic IP services (such as OpenDNS, dynDNS, or No-IP) at once using a centralized distribution of information.

DNS-O-Matic will not be able to update OpenDNS networks if your ISP is proxying your HTTP requests, even though DNS-O-Matic can accept an IP update sent over HTTP or HTTPS. This is because the update request that the IP address originates from and the IP address that you are requesting to update to, will not match.

You should send your updates over HTTPS to avoid any potential proxy problems.

How to identify that an ISP is proxying your HTTP requests

The easiest way to identify that your ISP is proxying your requests is to visit a series of four websites and compare the IP addresses displayed. The four websites are:

http://myip.dnsomatic.com

https://myip.dnsomatic.com (you may need to accept the security certificate exception, but it is safe to proceed to this site)

http://www.whatismyip.com

http://www.lagado.com/proxy-test

If any of the results are different from the others, then you may be subject to a proxy. You can also talk to your ISP to confirm if they are proxying traffic.

How to configure clients to use HTTPS

The OpenDNS Dynamic IP Updater client for Windows automatically uses HTTPS to send its updates to DNS-O-Matic. Make sure that the “Send DNS-O-Matic” box is checked.

For other clients that support SSL, you can configure them to send their authentications securely.

Examples:

ddclient “ssl=yes”

curl --user "username:password" "https://@updates.dnsomatic.com/nic/update?hostname=hostname”

curl will automatically try to update through HTTPS when presented in the URL.

wget --user “username” --password=password” "https://@updates.dnsomatic.com/nic/update?hostname=hostname”

wget will automatically try to update through HTTPS when presented in the URL.

Note:

inadyn (used by DD-WRT and most routers) does not support HTTPS.