container logs show no ddclient output

[jasunen]

---

Expected Behavior

When running ddclient container I should see output of ddclient application in container logs.

Current Behavior

I see only linuxserver.io container startup messages.
If I exec into container with bash and run manually 'ddclient -foreground -file /config/ddclient.conf' I can see all the output as expected.

Environment

OS: ubuntu
CPU architecture: x86_64
How docker service was installed: swarm

Command used to create docker container (run/create/compose/screenshot)

container started in swarm with compose file:
version: "3.9"

x-app-1: &default-ddclient
image: ghcr.io/linuxserver/ddclient
environment:
- PUID=1000
- PGID=1000
- TZ=Europe/Helsinki
deploy:
mode: replicated
replicas: 1
restart_policy:
condition: any
delay: 2h

configs:
ddclient:
file: ddclient.conf

services:
ddclient:
<<: *default-ddclient
configs:
- source: ddclient
target: /config/ddclient.conf
uid: '0'
gid: '1000'
mode: 0440

Docker logs

[s6-init] making user provided files available at /var/run/s6/etc...exited 0.,
[s6-init] ensuring user provided files have correct perms...exited 0.,
[fix-attrs.d] applying ownership & permissions fixes...,
[fix-attrs.d] done.,
[cont-init.d] executing container initialization scripts...,
[cont-init.d] 01-envfile: executing... ,
[cont-init.d] 01-envfile: exited 0.,
[cont-init.d] 10-adduser: executing... ,
,
-------------------------------------,
_ (),
| | ___ _ _,
| | / | | | / \ ,
| | _ \ | | | () |,
|| |/ || _/,
,
,
Brought to you by linuxserver.io,
-------------------------------------,
,
To support LSIO projects visit:,
https://www.linuxserver.io/donate/,
-------------------------------------,
GID/UID,
-------------------------------------,
,
User uid: 1000,
User gid: 1000,
-------------------------------------,
,
[cont-init.d] 10-adduser: exited 0.,
[cont-init.d] 30-config: executing... ,
chown: changing ownership of '/config/ddclient.conf': Read-only file system,
chmod: changing permissions of '/config/ddclient.conf': Read-only file system,
[cont-init.d] 30-config: exited 1.,
[cont-init.d] 90-custom-folders: executing... ,
[cont-init.d] 90-custom-folders: exited 0.,
[cont-init.d] 99-custom-files: executing... ,
[custom-init] no custom files found exiting...,
[cont-init.d] 99-custom-files: exited 0.,
[cont-init.d] done.,
[services.d] starting services,
[services.d] done.,
Setting up watches.,
Watches established.

[github-actions]

Thanks for opening your first issue here! Be sure to follow the bug or feature issue templates!

[jasunen]

my ddclient.conf:
daemon=300
use=web
web=svc.joker.com/nic/checkip
server=svc.joker.com/nic/update?
protocol=dyndns2
login=
password=
host=*****
ssl=yes
verbose=yes
quiet=no
debug=no

[Lockszmith-GH]

Based on https://github.com/ddclient/ddclient#troubleshooting the -debug -verbose -noquiet options are command line options.

What I ended up doing for myself was add the command line switched and bind the file:

1. Create a file named ddclient.run place the following code in it:

#!/usr/bin/with-contenv bash
exec \
	s6-setuidgid abc /usr/bin/ddclient -foreground -debug -verbose -noquiet -file /ddclient.conf

2. chmod it to 774
3. chown it as root:root
4. add the following volume bind:

./ddclient.run:/etc/services.d/ddclient/run

5. start the contianer

I wish this was controllable via an ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE in the docker-config - but for now, it works.

[hadjilucasL]

I believe you can just add

syslog=yes
verbose=yes

in the config file (ddclient.conf) and that should output logs to system log and increase the verbosity. Seems to work when I try it on my side.

The relevant parts of my config file:

daemon=650
syslog=yes
pid=/var/run/ddclient/ddclient.pid
cache=/config/ddclient.cache
ssl=yes                                                   
verbose=yes

use=web, web=checkip.dyndns.org/, web-skip='Current IP Address:'

[thespad]

@Lockszmith-GH you're welcome to submit a PR, I don't see we'd have any issue with an ENV to enable debug logging.

[Lockszmith-GH]

@thespad good point, I might try that, but please - if someone can, don't wait on me - my brain might surprise me and I'll get it done, but I'm betting on the usual - not counting on it.

@hadjilucasL with the risk of sounding pretentious, I'll sarcastically say 'believing isn't seeing' 😉

What I mean: I saw that config in your original post, this is what brought me here, I had the same issue, I was hoping what you are trying to do would work for me.
So at first I tried it myself, after seeing it didn't work - I reviewed the parent GitHub repo, and noticed those options are not listed there.

They are only listed as command line options.

The workaround I suggested, worked for me with the current version pulled, and I hope this will work for you as well.

[hadjilucasL]

Hey @Lockszmith-GH. I just tried it with a vanilla pull of the latest docker-ddclient and that config works on my side on unraid. Did you try with the configuration file exactly as I posted ? Not quite sure why it doesn't work on your side. What is the setup in which you are testing this ?

Regarding the verbose not being in the original example conf file, not all options are found inside the example conf.

However you can see here that the verbose option is listed along with others that are found in the conf file, like the ssl. I believe if you go through the code you will find they are all read in if they are defined in the conf file.

As a demo, if you try running ddclient from the command line with the config file below, the verbose option is not initially set as it is undefined in the command line arguments (opt) and only set after the globals are read in from the configuration file.

root@b9cc3eb8c814:/# ddclient -file /config/ddclient.conf -foreground -debug -noexec
=== opt ====
opt{cache}                           : <undefined>
opt{cmd}                             : <undefined>
opt{cmd-skip}                        : <undefined>
opt{daemon}                          : 650
opt{debug}                           : 1
opt{exec}                            : 0
opt{facility}                        : <undefined>
opt{file}                            : /config/ddclient.conf
opt{force}                           : <undefined>
opt{foreground}                      : 1
opt{fw}                              : <undefined>
opt{fw-banlocal}                     : <undefined>
opt{fw-login}                        : <undefined>
opt{fw-password}                     : <undefined>
opt{fw-skip}                         : <undefined>
opt{geturl}                          : <undefined>
opt{help}                            : <undefined>
opt{host}                            : <undefined>
opt{if}                              : <undefined>
opt{if-skip}                         : <undefined>
opt{ip}                              : <undefined>
opt{ipv6}                            : <undefined>
opt{login}                           : <undefined>
opt{mail}                            : <undefined>
opt{mail-failure}                    : <undefined>
opt{max-interval}                    : 2160000
opt{min-error-interval}              : 300
opt{min-interval}                    : 30
opt{options}                         : <undefined>
opt{password}                        : <undefined>
opt{pid}                             : <undefined>
opt{postscript}                      : <undefined>
opt{priority}                        : <undefined>
opt{protocol}                        : <undefined>
opt{proxy}                           : <undefined>
opt{query}                           : <undefined>
opt{quiet}                           : 0
opt{retry}                           : <undefined>
opt{server}                          : <undefined>
opt{ssl}                             : <undefined>
opt{syslog}                          : <undefined>
opt{test}                            : <undefined>
opt{timeout}                         : <undefined>
opt{use}                             : <undefined>
opt{verbose}                         : <undefined>
opt{web}                             : <undefined>
opt{web-skip}                        : <undefined>
=== globals ====
globals{cache}                       : /config/ddclient.cache
globals{daemon}                      : 650
globals{debug}                       : 1
globals{exec}                        : 0
globals{file}                        : /config/ddclient.conf
globals{foreground}                  : 1
globals{login}                       : xxxx
globals{password}                    : xxxx
globals{pid}                         : /var/run/ddclient/ddclient.pid
globals{protocol}                    : xxxx
globals{quiet}                       : 0
globals{ssl}                         : 1
globals{syslog}                      : 1
globals{use}                         : web
globals{verbose}                     : 1
globals{web}                         : checkip.dyndns.org/
globals{web-skip}                    : Current IP Address:
=== config ====
config{121254722}{atime}             : 0
config{121254722}{cacheable}         : ARRAY(0x562d288b55e8)
config{121254722}{cmd}               : <undefined>
config{121254722}{cmd-skip}          : 
config{121254722}{fw}                : 
config{121254722}{fw-banlocal}       : 0
config{121254722}{fw-login}          : <undefined>
config{121254722}{fw-password}       : 
config{121254722}{fw-skip}           : 
config{121254722}{host}              : xxxxx
config{121254722}{if}                : ppp0
config{121254722}{if-skip}           : 
config{121254722}{ip}                : <undefined>
config{121254722}{ipv6}              : 0
config{121254722}{login}             : xxxxx
config{121254722}{max-interval}      : 2160000
config{121254722}{min-error-interval} : 300
config{121254722}{min-interval}      : 30
config{121254722}{mtime}             : 0
config{121254722}{password}          : xxxxxx
config{121254722}{protocol}          : xxxx
config{121254722}{script}            : /servlet/updateip
config{121254722}{server}            : xxxxxx
config{121254722}{status}            : 
config{121254722}{use}               : web
config{121254722}{warned-min-error-interval} : 0
config{121254722}{warned-min-interval} : 0
config{121254722}{web}               : checkip.dyndns.org/
config{121254722}{web-skip}          : Current IP Address:
config{121254722}{wtime}             : 30

Here is the output in the docker logs of unraid.

-------------------------------------
_ ()
| | ___ _ __
| | / __| | | / \
| | \__ \ | | | () |
|_| |___/ |_| \__/


Brought to you by linuxserver.io
-------------------------------------

To support LSIO projects visit:
https://www.linuxserver.io/donate/
-------------------------------------
GID/UID
-------------------------------------

User uid: 99
User gid: 100
-------------------------------------

[cont-init.d] 10-adduser: exited 0.
[cont-init.d] 30-config: executing...
[cont-init.d] 30-config: exited 0.
[cont-init.d] 90-custom-folders: executing...
[cont-init.d] 90-custom-folders: exited 0.
[cont-init.d] 99-custom-files: executing...
[custom-init] no custom files found exiting...
[cont-init.d] 99-custom-files: exited 0.
[cont-init.d] done.
[services.d] starting services
[services.d] done.
Setting up watches.
Watches established.
CONNECT: checkip.dyndns.org
CONNECTED: using HTTP
SENDING: GET / HTTP/1.0
SENDING: Host: checkip.dyndns.org
SENDING: User-Agent: ddclient/3.9.1
SENDING: Connection: close
SENDING:
SENDING:
RECEIVE: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
RECEIVE: Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2021 00:59:17 GMT
RECEIVE: Content-Type: text/html
RECEIVE: Content-Length: 105
RECEIVE: Connection: close
RECEIVE: Cache-Control: no-cache
RECEIVE: Pragma: no-cache
RECEIVE:
RECEIVE: <html><head><title>Current IP Check</title></head><body>Current IP Address: xxxxxx</body></html>
SUCCESS: xxxxxx: skipped: IP address was already set to xxxxxx

and here is my full ddclient.conf file

daemon=650
syslog=yes
pid=/var/run/ddclient/ddclient.pid
cache=/config/ddclient.cache
ssl=yes
verbose=yes

use=web, web=checkip.dyndns.org/, web-skip='Current IP Address:'

protocol=dnsmadeeasy
login=xxxx
password=xxxx
123456789

[Lockszmith-GH]

You are completely right about the code, looks like it's been there at least 2 years ago, if not from the beginning. I'll try to re-pull and reconfigure, see if that works out.

What about OP (@jasunen) did anything here work for you?

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[julmb]

I am having the same problem. However, log output is only missing when the daemon= option is set in the configuration file. I believe that some very strange things are happening here.

In the container, ddclient is run as /usr/bin/ddclient -foreground -file /ddclient.conf. This actually does not start a persistent service, but only runs the client once. When the client then exits almost immediately, it is restarted by the s6 supervisor (see also ddclient/ddclient#352 (comment)). I suspect the only reason this does not cause a very fast restart loop is that ddclient will wait for a minimum of 60 seconds if no update interval is configured (see ddclient/ddclient#352 (comment)).

When the daemon= option is set, this overrides the -foreground behavior and starts ddclient as a persistent service. However, it also seems to change where the output is sent. I have not yet been able to figure out why this is and how to influence it. Setting both syslog=yes and verbose=yes as @hadjilucasL recommends restores at least some of the output (maybe it gets sent to stderr for debug purposes?), but it seems like a bit of a hack.

So right now my options are

1. not setting daemon= and have s6 continuously restart ddclient every minute, which is too fast and gets me blocked by my DDNS provider
2. setting daemon= and have ddclient runs properly as a daemon but with either no output or very verbose debug output

I seems like way ddclient is run in the container is somewhat broken and maybe there is a better and more consistent way to handle things. Setting the update interval via daemon= should ideally not fundamentally change how the service is run and also break logging at the same time.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.