DuckDNS - It's not just me - it's you!

Mutt · December 15, 2020, 10:08am

EDIT: I would like to point out that I did advise Evert (twice) that specifying an external address fot the port forwarding would never work eg : -

Hmmm, wanna bet he uses Nabu casa.???

How did you get on with using your neighbours WiFi to access ?

You are at the limits of my knowledge / experience on this subject now, all I can say is my port forwarding is TCP only and leaves the external address blank. From here on in I think you are breaking new ground. Here is a map of the area you will be travelling through, its blank so just fill it in as you go along
Seriously, if you find out anything more on this report back and I’ll update the thread.

Side Note: Your English is damned good !

ejdb · December 15, 2020, 10:26am

Well thanks Muttley.
Neighbourswi-Fi was a nogo too. I do get to see the frontend but that’s it. So i am knocking at my own door for sure but noone is opening it.

I will adjust my portforwarding by leaving the external IP blank. Just to give it another try.

If that doesn’t work either i will just continue my quest, and i will keep you posted on my progress.

This is something so many people are struggling with. I just cant understand why there is no clear guideline from the DuckDNS or HA devs…Yes i know it is impossible to cover all routers but at least it should be clear which port(s) need to be forwarded to which port(s).

Anyway i won’t give up. It;s way too much of a learningcurve for me although it does consume a hell of a lot of time…

Mutt · December 15, 2020, 12:52pm

There’s always Nabu Casa …

santik · December 19, 2020, 2:38pm

Adding one more “thank you” for @Mutt

One important note:
I have 2 routers at home: first (router1) is from provider and it does nothing more than passing internet to my another router (router2). To that router2 all my devices are connected including hassio.
So to make DuchDNS work I needed to add port forwarding rule on the router1. It is for 443 to router2 IP.
As a result the connection chain is the following: request comes to the router1 -> router1 forwards it to the router2 -> router2 passing it to hassio.

Hopefully it will save some time for people with multiple routers.

ejdb · December 19, 2020, 8:54pm

OK to help others out as well: I have fixed it for my configuration…its working!!!

And yes, be sure to read this entire topic!

After following the Mutt step by step guide i still couldn’t get it to work. Then i found out i had a setting wrong in m routers’ portforwaring. Instead of just filling in ext port 443 and forward it to my local IP port 443 i entered my external IP as well and that is where it all went wrong. Removed the External IP and since then it working like a champ!!!

To illustrate:

Thanks Muttley!

santik · January 3, 2021, 9:34am

Added a little guide how it worked for me.

klogg · January 3, 2021, 12:20pm

I go backwards and forwards on this external access malarkey…
I know just enough to make it dangerous to open a port but not enough to be sure I am doing it safely.
I am currently toying with Nabu Casa but that seems to have it’s own small can of worms (for me).

Has anyone (ahem, Mutt) ‘peer reviewed’ the above blog post^*? It seems to have boiled this very long and now quite complicated and hard to follow thread down to a few simple steps.

^*(No disrespect meant @santik, this is more an indication of my concern with opening my system to ‘The World’.)

Mutt · January 3, 2021, 1:49pm

Sorry klogg, I’ve other things on my plate right now.
I understand your point and it is valid
But I need to work up the interest and have the time to review and possibly test

mansouryaacoubi · February 17, 2021, 11:52am

^{3ecc39c8-db6a-44a4-be7b-f20e48a38d70}

For everyone still searching for the solution to this problem. I wrote a detailled guide to the solution:

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ronschaeffer · February 18, 2021, 7:05am

Great guide @santik. Thanks.

mgguinne · March 9, 2021, 6:28am

Hi All,

I have a very interesting issue with Duck DNS using the add store (running supervisor via virtual box on Mac). No matter what I do the config will not save, it just reverts to default (see screenshot). I am totally lost as to why this happens (nothing appears in the logs or in the browser console). I have tried on multiple Macs with different browsers and it keeps doing the same thing. I have installed and uninstalled and rebooted. I can’t see this add-on as a docker container in porntainer (I installed this as per the guide in supervisor and unhide all the container). Other add-ons let me edit the config fine.

Wondering if via terminal I could edit the file manually and then check out the file permissions (as I think that might be the issue here)? I have no idea where this file lives currently.

Would some help, spent many hours with no luck

DavidFW1960 · March 9, 2021, 6:36am

It won’t save if there is an error. Did you enter the token and domain name?

mgguinne · March 9, 2021, 7:09am

Hi David,

Thanks for replying, That is a good suggestion but does not change the issue for me. I took the layout from the help guide: https://medium.com/@fedorets.alex/hass-io-duck-dns-the-simplest-way-79ba69e5b2e5

lets_encrypt:
  accept_terms: true
  certfile: fullchain.pem
  keyfile: privkey.pem
token: 12345-67890-abcde-fghij
domains:
  - yourdomain.duckdns.org
seconds: 300

And copied it straight in, same issue

lets_encrypt:
  accept_terms: true
  certfile: fullchain.pem
  keyfile: privkey.pem
token: 4a20bbc3-####-####-####-bb3dac709fb9
domains:
  - m###.duckns.com
seconds: 300

Replaced some chars with # to keep it private.

DavidFW1960 · March 9, 2021, 7:35am

If you tap default has there been any change to the format of the configuration at all? There was another poster with an issue today but he had accept terms false as soon as he corrected that it worked so the addon seems ok… ie it’s something specific to you

Mutt · March 9, 2021, 9:52am

Where did you get the token ?

Ie was it properly generated by duckdns or did you just make up your own ?

mgguinne · March 9, 2021, 10:31am

Hi @Mutt, I got it from DuckDNS, I just obfuscated for the post.

mgguinne · March 9, 2021, 10:34am

Thanks @DavidFW1960, I copied the config from the post you linked and it worked! Wow I have no idea why the config pages do not have any error handling (makes it so hard to new users to work out). How would I give feedback to the dev team to look at making these easier for others in the future?

lets_encrypt:
  accept_terms: true
  certfile: fullchain.pem
  keyfile: privkey.pem
token: 4a20bbc3-####-####-####-bb3dac709fb9
domains:
  - m###.duckdns.org
aliases: []
seconds: 300

DavidFW1960 · March 9, 2021, 10:49am

If it won’t save the config 100% an error but not real helpful I agree

Mutt · March 9, 2021, 10:59am

That’s why so many of the solution threads contain ‘examples’ of what worked.
Including the solution post in this thread.

Did you observe any major departures from this solution ? (ie do I need to update this thread to contain a new nugget of information or has the configuration requirements changed ?)

Edit: looking at your two posts the difference between the config entries escapes me. What is the difference ?

mgguinne · March 9, 2021, 11:37am

Yeah, strange to me.

The Diff that I can see is

accept_terms: false

instead of

accept_terms: true

and as @anon43302295 said, I was missing

aliases: []

I think overall, I found it hard to understand why the error I got when I first installed the plugin says I have to enter my token, which I did but then it won’t save. I knew from other guides I had to also update the “accept_terms” and “domains”, but I most of been getting an error, but never knew.

To be honest @Mutt I really thought I had an issue with the file not being able to be written too as I tried changing many of the sections and every time it just went back to default (I know now it was just an error, just that the UI does not report that to the user). So I never knew to try to copy other configs here.

Thanks all