Custom URLs for your Synology with Namecheap

The Synology DSM has a handy built-in updater for dynamic DNS (DDNS). It makes a lot of sense, given the Synology is always on and connected to the internet, keeping a custom domain pointed to the right IP at all times.

Most people who followed this headline already know these definitions, but just to recap: dynamic DNS allows a fully qualified domain name like “example.com” to point to an IP address that changes regularly, as most home ISPs do. Unless you’re paying for a static IP, your IP is changing now and then, defeating any custom domains you point to it.

Synology’s DDNS integration comes with presets for quite a few services, but most of the free ones don’t allow you to use custom domain names, just subdomains of domains like “synology.me” or “zapto.org”. I wanted to use something short and personalized (because I’m lazy and vain, I guess).

I already had some unused domains registered with Namecheap, which offers DDNS for your domains, but Synology didn’t have a preset for it. In a lot of cases you can use the DSM to create a custom DDNS, using a URL with __PLACEHOLDERS__ in it. Namecheap doesn’t offer a URL you can curl, though, and using dynamicdns.park-your-domain.com doesn’t work with that (I’m not sure why). The good news is that it’s pretty easy to add your own Namecheap service provider to your Synology.

I found a few existing solutions for this but each of them had some failing. This solution is what I distilled from multiple sources, simplified, and currently have working.

1. First, register the domain you want to use with Namecheap and go to the Advanced DNS configuration for the domain. Ensure that there’s a an A record for the “@” wildcard.

   If you want to use a subdomain as your dynamic host (e.g. “home.example.com”), add a record for it by clicking “Add New Record”, selecting A Record, and entering the subdomain (just “home” in the previous example). The IP address here doesn’t matter, the script we’ll set up will be updating that.

2. Scroll down to Dynamic DNS, toggle the switch to enable it, and note/copy the password it shows you, we’ll use that in step 6.

3. For this next part, you’ll need SSH access to your Synology, which you can enable with Control Panel->Terminal & SNMP.

   As an aside, I highly recommend changing the default SSH port, setting up keys, and disabling password login. Also set your Control Panel->Security setting to the highest level. Especially once you have a public domain associated with your IP, you’ll get your ports scanned frequently, and there will be regular brute force login attempts.

4. Now, add a little script that will handle pinging an update URL with your credentials and IP. Save this script to /usr/local/bin/namecheap_ddns.sh on your Synology:

   #!/bin/bash
   
   ## Namecheap DDNS updater for Synology
   ## Brett Terpstra <https://brettterpstra.com>
   
   PASSWORD="$2"
   DOMAIN="$3"
   IP="$4"
   
   PARTS=$(echo $DOMAIN | awk 'BEGIN{FS="."} {print NF?NF-1:0}')
   # If $DOMAIN has two parts (domain + tld), use wildcard for host
   if [[ $PARTS == 1 ]]; then
       HOST='@'
       DOMAIN=$DOMAIN
   # If $DOMAIN has a subdomain, separate for HOST and DOMAIN variables
   elif [[ $PARTS == 2 ]]; then
       HOST=${DOMAIN%%.*}
       DOMAIN=${DOMAIN#*.}
   fi
   
   RES=$(curl -s "https://dynamicdns.park-your-domain.com/update?host=$HOST&domain=$DOMAIN&password=$PASSWORD&ip=$IP")
   ERR=$(echo $RES | sed -n "s/.*<ErrCount>\(.*\)<\/ErrCount>.*/\1/p")
   
   if [[ $ERR -gt 0 ]]; then
       echo "badauth"
   else
       echo "good"
   fi

   Make it executable with chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/namecheap_ddns.sh.

5. Next, we need to add the provider to the DSM configuration. You’ll need to be root to do this, so run sudo -i and enter your admin account’s password. Now edit the file at /etc.defaults/ddns_provider.conf. I have Vim installed on my Synology, but I can’t remember if it’s included by default or I added it. Use whatever you have handy, or use cat redirection to do it (copy and paste the whole block below at once):

   cat >> /etc.defaults/ddns_provider.conf << 'EOF'
   [Namecheap]
           modulepath=/usr/local/bin/namecheap_ddns.sh
           queryurl=https://namecheap.com
           website=https://namecheap.com
   EOF

6. Go back to your Synology DSM and open Control Panel->External Access->DDNS. Click Add and you should see Namecheap in the Service Provider dropdown. Select it and enter your custom domain (including subdomain if you set that up) in the Hostname field. Username isn’t needed in our script, just paste your password from step 2 in the Password/Key field. Click “Automatic Setup” next to External Address to enter your current public IP.

   Click the Test Connection button to see if everything is working. Click OK to save.

Assuming you see Normal under the Status column, you’re now updating your custom domain with your public IP. It may take a bit for it to propagate initially, but once it does, you can access Synology DSM, Synology Drive, Filestation, and all of your packages using your custom domain and the appropriate ports. If you head to Control Panel->Security->Certificate, there’s even a wizard for adding a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for your new domain, allowing you to use https connections for everything.

Hope that’s useful to some Synology users out there, it was definitely a fun little hack for me.