OpenDNS

I needed some good content filtering service (anti-pr0n, anti-phishing, anti-….). So, I googled for “open” (which I do a lot lately when looking for software or services :)), and “dns”. Was taken to OpenDNS and I fell in love with it immediately.

Their site looks really good and displays the most crucial information on a single page, which i like a lot.

I signed up for the account, and this is how I set up my computer to use OpenDNS.

Add OpenDNS nameservers to resolv.conf file

$sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf
# OpenDNS
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

My ISP DNS names are always forced to resolv.conf when I connect to Internet, so I had to protect this file from being overwritten by network manager (i – immutable)

$sudo chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf

Install ddclient (updates IP addresses at dynamic DNS services) on Ubuntu

$sudo apt-get install ddclient

Configure ddclient

$sudo dpkg-reconfigure ddclient
Dynamic DNS service provider: other
Dynamic DNS server: updates.opendns.com
Dynamic DNS update protocol: dyndns2
DynDNS fully qualified domain names: $label //this is actually a network "label" set on the OpenDNS "networks" page
Username for dynamic DNS service: $username
Password for dynamic DNS service: $password
Interface used for dynamic DNS service: ppp0 // I use network manager to connect to DLS provider, which creates a ppp0 interface
Run ddclient on PPP connect: yes
Run ddclient as daemon: yes
ddclient update interval: 300

Check that ddclient daemon is up and running

ps aux | grep ddclient

Make sure to add “ssl” option to ddclient config file, otherwise OpenDNS will not be updated

sudo nano /etc/ddclient.conf
# /etc/ddclient.conf
ssl=yes

Restart ddclient

$sudo /etc/init.d/ddclient restart

This setup will check if my IP address has been changed every 5 minutes. If changed, my account on OpenDNS will be automatically updated.

I switched both home and office computers to OpenDNS, and so far all I have are words of praise.