Updating DNS records for yunohost domain returns error

What type of hardware are you using: Other ARM board
What YunoHost version are you running: 12.0.9.1
How are you able to access your server: The webadmin
SSH
Are you in a special context or did you perform specific tweaking on your YunoHost instance ?: No

Describe your issue

Hi,
My device is a Zimablade connected directly to my router with an ethernet cable.
I initially configured Yunohost with a domain that I no longer use and I wished to register one of the free domains Yunohost offers. So I deleted the old domains and added the new one.
However, both DNS updates and LetsEncrypt certificate installation fail.
I would try to fix it myself but I don’t really know how to interpret these obscure errors.
Thank you

Share relevant logs or error messages

https://paste.yunohost.org/raw/licoticodu

Hi imawhitecat,

Welcome to the forums!

The log has as subject: “error: Could not update IP address to DynDNS”

I don’t have experience yet with the free domains, or with dynamic DNS, but I just registered a .noho.st address to try it out. I got the same subject for the log, but a different cause.

Is your domain also at noho.st? If not, which one?

Seeing that you previously used your own domain, and perhaps some time has slipped since then, could it be that your server got a new IP from your router, and that the ports are not being redirected to the right device?

Edit to add: this was a new server. After running the diagnosis, the process ran without an error.

Are there any warnings in your diagnosis results?

Hi, thank you for replying. Here is a paste of my latest diagnosis: https://paste.yunohost.org/raw/sedejitura

There are many errors on the DNS configuration but that’s precisely because the domain won’t update successfully as I laid out on my original post.

If there was indeed a mismatch in the IPs, should I check my router’s config then?

It seems the router forwards traffic correctly to your Yunohost, so there is no mismatch there.

[ERROR] Some DNS records are missing or incorrect for domain maindomain.tld (category basic)
  - This domain's DNS configuration should automatically be managed by YunoHost. If that's not the case, you can try to force an update using 'yunohost dyndns update --force'.

You could try the suggested command after logging in via SSH:

$ sudo yunohost dyndns update --force

Does that command give any output?

Yes, this is the output:

helscn@helscn:~$ sudo yunohost dyndns update --force
Info: Updated needed, going on...
Error: id 58223
opcode UPDATE
rcode REFUSED
flags QR RA
;ZONE
ynh.fr. IN SOA
;PREREQ
;UPDATE
;ADDITIONAL
Info: The operation 'Update the IP associated with your YunoHost subdomain 'helscn.ynh.fr'' could not be completed. Please share the full log of this operation using the command 'yunohost log share 20250118-150641-dyndns_update-helscn.ynh.fr' to get help
Error: Could not update IP address to DynDNS

This is the full log: https://paste.yunohost.org/raw/odizadubir

It seems that what is needed is not so much an update, as an initial configuration.

When I run the command on the server where I configured a noho.st domain, there’s only very short output:


$ sudo yunohost dyndns update -d frankfurt.noho.st --force
Info: Updated needed, going on...
Success! Updated your IP on DynDNS
$

Yours complains about being refused. Did you enter a recovery password when setting the ynh.fr domain the first time? If not, that could be the problem; if yes, maybe retype it in the configuration:

Edit to add:

There is a somewhat similar issue going on, where metyun suggests running a subscribe command :

$ sudo yunohost domain dyndns subscribe yourdomain.ynh.fr -p yourpassword

Again, the password is the recovery password that you gave in during registration of the domain.

Hi,

Trying the subscribe command does nothing since the domain is already subscribed.

I’ve tried with other domains (noho.st instead of ynh.fr) and same thing happens.

When I try to access the DNS options on the Yunohost interface, it leads me directly to a yunohost crash report, since I suppose the first thing it does when I access it is try to update the options. So I don’t have access to the menu. Is there a command to do what you say?

I don’t understand what you ask :stuck_out_tongue:

PS:
From the diagnostics:

[SUCCESS] Domain maindomain.tld is reachable through HTTP from outside the local network.
[INFO] Domain domain2.tld is based on a special-use top-level domain (TLD) such as .local or .test and is therefore not expected to have actual DNS records.

How many domains do you have configured?

Have you tried registering a completely different domain?

Did you run the --force command as suggested by diagnostics? Please post the output!

I don’t understand what you ask :stuck_out_tongue:

Haha sorry. I meant if there’s some way to enter the recovery password on the dns settings without a GUI just in case, to see if that was the issue.

I have two domains, a local one for tests and the one I’m having problems with. Yesterday as I said I tried to register a different domain on a different namespace and the same thing happens. This is the log for that one https://paste.yunohost.org/raw/awacicebak

2025-01-21 16:34:29,814: ERROR - id 25814
opcode UPDATE
rcode REFUSED

Any chance your IP got banned? No idea whether that is actually possible…

Do you have an option to take your ARM board to friends, and try running it through their internet connection?

It is the command that you ran before, with --password at the end, for which you forgot to paste the output.

And what about using --force, as suggested in the previous post?

Any chance your IP got banned? No idea whether that is actually possible…

If that were the case, wouldn’t the diagnostics show that?

And I don’t think I have friends that would be willing to open their router ports for me to test this :stuck_out_tongue: I will check if my IP is banned for some reason once I get home.

Update commands with --force have the same result, that is, nay. Same error. If my IP is not banned, my last resort might be to reinstall Yunohost in case I have unknowingly messed up something. Do you have any other ideas?

I will update you on the IP thing in a few hours.

They don’t have to open their routers. Your Yunohost will contact noho.st or ynh.fr, and shout “Wohoo guys, I’m here! Please check you got the right IP registered for my domain. By the way, my current IP is the IP of my friends house!”

Later on you’d want to get a Letsencrypt certificate; that would need a working webserver. But without that, you can already see whether the error persists, or that you get something else.

  • In the case it did work, your imawhitecat.noho.st domain now points to the IP of your friends house. You can check that by using any online DNS / host checker by asking for the details of your domain.
  • If it did not work with another error, there’s more to investigate
  • If it did not work, with the same error, then you might have messed up something.

I assume you use ynh.fr / noho.st because you have not registered your own domain? Do you know whether your IP adresses stay fixed for extended periods of time, or do you explicitly need the dynamic DNS feature?

That reminds me, what kind of connection does your Yunohost have to the internet? You mention the cable from YNH to router.

  • Regular modem, with copper or optical connection : no mobile / 4G / 5G
  • Normal network, with regular IPv4 and IPv6 : no double NAT, fake IPv4, or missing IPv6
  • Free access to your Yunohost: no VPN or ISP-provided child safe connection

They don’t have to open their routers
Oh, okay, then I might be able to convince a friend or two. I might try reinstalling Yunohost first or troubleshoot further before doing that.

A rule of thumb for my router is that the IPs change every few days. I’ve checked the current one and it’s not blacklisted anywhere. It’s a common Vodafone router with fiber internet, my host is connected directly with an Ethernet cable.

I’m also going to try using other domain providers such as NoIp in the meantime. Will report

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Woops I messed up the blockquote.

Ok so the only way I could find to fix this was to reinstall yunohost. I updated it from bullseye to bookworm and something seems to have clicked - domain records now work. What an odd issue - there must have been something wrong with my machine.

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Strange. Maybe there was.

Glad you got it fixed; I hope you got all your backed-up apps back up and running!