os-ddclient

[franco]

Comparing to the huge list of service available on dyndns, it's really embarrassing to force ppl to move to ddclient, that in his current stat on opnsense, only support 7-8 protocol ...
When dyndns supported about 60 DNS services ...

Thank you for jumping to "embarrassing" conclusions.


Cheers,
Franco

[Alessandro Del Prete]

Comparing to the huge list of service available on dyndns, it's really embarrassing to force ppl to move to ddclient, that in his current stat on opnsense, only support 7-8 protocol ...
When dyndns supported about 60 DNS services ...

1. Devs didn't force anyone...22.7 will be released in (at least) 6 months, you can currently still use (like I do) dyndns. So "forcing" is a totally inappropriate term.

2. By the time 22.7 will be released, ddclient will surely support a lot more providers than current release, and if it doesn't, I don't think devs will remove dyndns from the repo leaving dyndns users without an official alternative.

3. even if the official repo will not offer dyndns, it doesn't mean the installed dyndns stops working. If it's installed and running, it won't get stopped by 22.7.

4. I hope dyndns will be published in mimugmail's repo, so everybody will be happy.

Cheers.

[franco]

Point 3 is especially important because a lot of complaints forget: we don't deinstall installed plugins. Even if 22.7 doesn't have it your upgrade will retain it.

And also you can always use this and take it anywhere...

Code Select Expand

# pkg create os-dyndns
Creating package for os-dyndns-1.27_2
# ls
os-dyndns-1.27_2.txz


Cheers,
Franco

[cookiemonster]

You need to at least support all the protocol available (cf. list on top) to even consider moving to ddclient.

5. The language used suggest a demand. That's a bit rich for software that is developed and supported for free.
6. The clients are included in OPN but developed externally, also for free. The requests should be at least be made there as well.
Think about it. The OPN developers are well within their rights to say "it only brings us hassle we don't need, we'll stop including a dynamic client. Users need to find their own way". I doubt anyone wants that to happen.

[Alessandro Del Prete]

Franco, I think it's just a communication issue: you should have probably communicated that the switch would have happened only after ddclient was in a more mature status and with a clear plan on addressing its current shortcomings. It's also true it was implicit, because 22.7 will be ready in many months...giving the time to make ddclient better. :)

When things work fine, users (me included) can't understand immediately why devs take some "apparently disruptive" decisions...but you tried to explain that dyndns was difficult to maintain and not in line with your methodology etc., nevertheless, it's not enough to calm down everybody.

Everybody should realize you guys have common sense, and would never leave us users without a proper alternative. Probably some users just felt pushed without a valid (at the moment) alternative.

Keep up the great job, we appreciate your work and dedication.

[Alessandro Del Prete]

5. The language used suggest a demand. That's a bit rich for software that is developed and supported for free.
6. The clients are included in OPN but developed externally, also for free. The requests should be at least be made there as well.
Think about it. The OPN developers are well within their rights to say "it only brings us hassle we don't need, we'll stop including a dynamic client. Users need to find their own way". I doubt anyone wants that to happen.

7. you can always install dyndns on another server. it's not mandatory to run it on OPNsense.

[cookiemonster]

5. The language used suggest a demand. That's a bit rich for software that is developed and supported for free.
6. The clients are included in OPN but developed externally, also for free. The requests should be at least be made there as well.
Think about it. The OPN developers are well within their rights to say "it only brings us hassle we don't need, we'll stop including a dynamic client. Users need to find their own way". I doubt anyone wants that to happen.

7. you can always install dyndns on another server. it's not mandatory to run it on OPNsense.

I know that, others might not but it has been metioned earlier in this thread. Good to reiterate it though.

[Alessandro Del Prete]

I know that, others might not but it has been metioned earlier in this thread. Good to reiterate it though.

I was just integrating the list, quoting your integration. :)

[mueller]

Looking at the volume of the support of ddclient development after 22.1 came out I think the next release of the plugin with 22.1.1 will already be a lot better. Again, the mission was not to replace all at once. It was to start replacing it.

And yes there are 6 months to 22.7 and now it looks like we can make it there with ddclient. In any case wait for 22.1.1 next week and then reassess the situation after having checked the attached release notes. Some things may not have been picked up yet but if it is technically possible they will. :)


Cheers,
Franco

Thank you for the feedback - that's reassuring.
Now I can sleep better.
No, fun, if those are the only problems, a super job was done with 22.1 ... ;)

[sesquipedality]

2. By the time 22.7 will be released, ddclient will surely support a lot more providers than current release, and if it doesn't, I don't think devs will remove dyndns from the repo leaving dyndns users without an official alternative.

Why would you think that?  It would not be the first time functionality present in a previous version of the firmware has been removed.  In fact, the devs have indicated in this thread that they will never support a "custom" method like os-dyndns does, so practically it seems that as a user of Mythic Beasts, a small yet highly clueful UK ISP it is unlikely to ever get support in os-ddclient, my options will be

• Learn enough about ddclient and the internals of opnsense to write and submit a patch myself, which may or may not get accepted.
• Move my dyndns config into scripts and cron jobs.
• Leave the old unmaintained plugin in place.

It's likely to be one of the latter option sI take, as I don't really have the time for option 1.  I'm am lucky enough to have sufficient knowledge that option 2 is actually viable for me, but I am sure there are many others who won't be.  I get where the devs are coming from - maintaining legacy code is a pain, but removing functionality is always going to be a pain point for existing users, and I would strongly prefer the option of offering ddclient as an alternative and leaving dyndns in on an "as is" basi, so option 3 is likely to win out by default.

I think there has also been an element of glib "this is not a problem" response that also fails to acknowledge that for many, it will in fact, be a problem.  To say that there are sound technical reasons for causing those problems for a minority users is a stance that may well  be valid (I'm not in a position to judge), but breezily trying to convince us that this is an unproblematic change when it may well cause me a problem and take at least half a day of my time to work around does not sit well with me, I am afraid.  Things may continue to work, and I hope they will, but there is of course no guarantee of that.

[Alessandro Del Prete]

Why would you think that?  It would not be the first time functionality present in a previous version of the firmware has been removed.  In fact, the devs have indicated in this thread that they will never support a "custom" method like os-dyndns does

Because I use logic and I read what devs say, and they said dyndns was too much hassle to maintain and they opted for ddclient, and that they will work on ddclient because they acknowledge is not at the same level of functionality as dyndns. I think the problem is "trust" and common sense, think about it: why would they want to make hundreds/thousands of loyal OPNsense users unhappy leaving them without an alternative option? It doesn't make sense. Your assumptions are based on prejudice, not on facts, it's a very personal and subjective interpretation of reality with a little bit of mistrust in devs words.

so practically it seems that as a user of Mythic Beasts, a small yet highly clueful UK ISP it is unlikely to ever get support in os-ddclient, my options will be

• Learn enough about ddclient and the internals of opnsense to write and submit a patch myself, which may or may not get accepted.
• Move my dyndns config into scripts and cron jobs.
• Leave the old unmaintained plugin in place.

You can keep using dyndns for as long as you want, nobody will uninstall it. Or you can install dyndns on another server in your network, nobody forces you to run it on OPNsense. Most probably dyndns will be available through mimugmail's repo...you have alternatives, but won't acknowledge them, and I can't understand why.

It's likely to be one of the latter option sI take, as I don't really have the time for option 1.  I'm am lucky enough to have sufficient knowledge that option 2 is actually viable for me, but I am sure there are many others who won't be.  I get where the devs are coming from - maintaining legacy code is a pain, but removing functionality is always going to be a pain point for existing users, and I would strongly prefer the option of offering ddclient as an alternative and leaving dyndns in on an "as is" basi, so option 3 is likely to win out by default.

you are depicting non-existent scenarios...and they didn't remove any functionality, they will replace a piece of sw with another in probably 6 months...and by that time the replacing sw will be much more mature than now. In case it isn't you have alternatives and keep what you are running, or they could also opt not to remove dyndns from the repo, who knows. So why worry for something that is yet to come and for which there already are alternatives? Doesn't make any sense.

I think there has also been an element of glib "this is not a problem" response that also fails to acknowledge that for many, it will in fact, be a problem.

No, there won't be any problem, because there already are alternatives. They won't remove anything, they will just remove it from the repo, they won't uninstall/break anything. But we're repeating the same things over and over...I think it's starting to become a weird conversation...:)

To say that there are sound technical reasons for causing those problems for a minority users is a stance that may well  be valid (I'm not in a position to judge) but breezily trying to convince us that this is an unproblematic change when it may well cause me a problem and take at least half a day of my time to work around does not sit well with me, I am afraid.  Things may continue to work, and I hope they will, but there is of course no guarantee of that.

Yes there is a technical guarantee, if you really don't trust devs, because YOU can uninstall the plugin, the upgrade to 22.7 won't uninstall dyndns and won't replace dyndns with ddclient. If you can't understand this basic thing I think this discussion is pretty useless...

I will keep using dyndns until ddclient proves to be a valid alternative, and I'm not concerned at all about the fact that in 6 months it won't be published on opnsense repo: there will be many ways to manage dyndns. It's not Unifi domain here, we're talking about opensource...there are ALWAYS alternatives.

This is my last post on the subject, it's starting to get boring having to repeat over and over the same basic things.

Kind regards,

Alessandro

[sesquipedality]

You'd probably find it less necessary to go over the same things if you had read what I wrote a little more carefully, but you're right about one thing, which is that continuing this discussion further is pointless.

[almodovaris]

so practically it seems that as a user of Mythic Beasts, a small yet highly clueful UK ISP it is unlikely to ever get support in os-ddclient, my options will be

Don't think so. You may edit ddclient config with an URL to your own liking.

[sesquipedality]

Thanks, this sounds like a workable solution in principle, but in practice, would OpnSense overwrite a custom ddclient.conf?

[franco]

Truth be told ddclient is available in OPNsense since 2015 and between writing a config file and rc.conf entry the whole thing works faster than trying to respond to the volume of this thread. ;)

https://github.com/opnsense/tools/commit/da78fa2d#diff-af16265d3c158f256b7ae16e0e8e560931905be0e92d75596d7bc13c8725f7d5R18

If you don't install os-ddclient and just do this it works.. nobody overwriting stuff...

# pkg install ddclient


Cheers,
Franco