dns-me – free DNS for IoT devices

Everything a connected device needs

Built for fleets of meters, chargers, gateways and sensors – not just a single home router.

⧉

Device groups

Zero provisioning: one master key per product line. Each device derives its own password, names are created on first update.

⌂

Public or LAN address

Publish the public IP or the local address of a device – IPv4 and IPv6, with a short 60 s TTL.

🔒

HTTPS for devices

ACME DNS-01 endpoint: devices can get real Let's Encrypt certificates for their name – even inside a LAN.

⇄

Works with routers

dyndns2 compatible /nic/update – use it with FRITZ!Box, ddclient, inadyn, OpenWrt or ESPHome.

⛨

Secure by default

HTTPS, hashed secrets, brute-force protection, response rate limiting, no open resolver, no tracking.

⚡

Fast & redundant

Own authoritative name servers with instant NOTIFY/AXFR replication. Answers come straight from memory.

How it works

Three steps from unboxing to a reachable device.

Create an account

Update the IP

The device (or your cloud) calls the API whenever its address changes.

Use the name

Every device is reachable as <name>.dns-me.com – worldwide, within a minute.

Simple API

Pick what fits your firmware. Full reference in the API docs.

# use the caller's IP
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $SECRET" https://api.dns-me.com/v2/devices/sensor-42/update

# or set explicit addresses (null removes a record, omitted = unchanged)
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $SECRET" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"ipv4":"192.168.1.42","ipv6":null}' https://api.dns-me.com/v2/devices/sensor-42/update

# dyndns2 protocol – user = device name, password = device secret
curl -u "sensor-42:$SECRET" "https://api.dns-me.com/nic/update?hostname=sensor-42.dns-me.com&myip=192.168.1.42"
good 192.168.1.42

# FRITZ!Box: Update-URL
https://api.dns-me.com/nic/update?hostname=<domain>&myip=<ipaddr>,<ip6addr>

# Every device of group "acme" is named acme_<id> and computes its own password:
#   password = base64( sha256( utf8(lower("acme_00042")) + hex_decode(MASTER_KEY) ) )
name=acme_00042
pw=$( { printf %s "$name"; printf %s "$MASTER_KEY" | xxd -r -p; } | openssl dgst -sha256 -binary | base64 )
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $pw" https://api.dns-me.com/v2/devices/$name/update

# publish the ACME DNS-01 challenge for sensor-42.dns-me.com (lego / acme.sh / certbot hook)
curl -X PUT -H "Authorization: Bearer $SECRET" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"value":"'$TXT_VALUE'"}' https://api.dns-me.com/v2/devices/sensor-42/acme
# … certificate issued … clean up
curl -X DELETE -H "Authorization: Bearer $SECRET" https://api.dns-me.com/v2/devices/sensor-42/acme

Stable names for every IoT device.