I’m currently using Namecheap as my Registrar, with Dynamc DNS enabled. A script on my Virtualmin hits the URL needed (using cURL) if my IP changes, to update the IP of my records.
Prior to this, I was attempting to host DNS myself, with a single domain pointing to my Virtualmin server to hold the Nameserver records. However, I found that my sites would frequently go offline, likely because Comcast / Xfinity is simply not passing the DNS requests to my server at home. Once I swapped to Namecheap for my DNS, that issue went away.
I’m now running into another issue - when my LE Wildcard SSLs try to renew, the text records can’t be updated, since they are on Namecheap.
I know Namecheap has an API - is it possible to tell Virtualmin to use Namecheap’s DNS, and update records to allow for the cert renewals?
Registrar and DNS management are two independent concepts; one registers domains, one allows management of DNS records. I believe we only support the NameCheap Registration API and not any DNS management API.
Currently Virtualmin GPL has Route 53 support, and Pro adds Cloudflare and Google Cloud, for DNS management.
But, if it’s a reasonable API, I assume we could convince @Jamie to add NameCheap for DNS management, too. That one is popular enough and good enough (it’s the registrar I use, both for Virtualmin and personal domains) that it’d be a valuable addition for a lot of people I think.
When I first started using Virtualmin, I used Namecheap’s Dynamic DNS service, and would update the IP of my websites by calling a CRON job once every hour that would poll Namecheap and update the IP.
After that, I moved my DNS to my Virtualmin server, so I had better / easier control over it. At the moment, the DNS for a majority of my sites is hosted on my Virtualmin server, which is in my home served by my home ISP.
Given Comcast in our area is 1) Unreliable, and 2) The only game in town, DNS being stable is iffy. My goal would be to move my DNS back up to Namecheap, but manage it from within Virtualmin. That way, any time there was a change in IP, a new sub-domain / server, a LE challenge that needed a DNS entry, etc., Virtualmin would make the change up on Namecheap, which would have a much faster and more reliable DNS server than my home server.
“Enable PremiumDNS protection in order to switch your domain to our PremiumDNS platform. With our PremiumDNS platform, you get 100% DNS uptime and DDoS protection at the DNS level.”
When I was using Dynamic DNS, it was Basic - I never paid for Premium. That being said, I did get access to the DNS API by having enough credit / domains with them.
