Dynamic DNS for Website

[Wyndru]

Not sure if this is the right subforum, since It's not really a hardware question, but I figured it fit better here than in the SW forum.

I use GoDaddy, and they don't support dynamic dns without a 3rd party client, so I was wondering if anyone here has suggestions on what is a good option for doing this.

A while back I used dyndns, but IIRC without the paid account it required .dyndns in my URL somewhere.

I thought there were now options on routers to handle some of of this functionality (I have an actiontec from Verizon, but I still need to look into if it supports it).

Basically, all I want is something that keeps GoDaddy updated with my current ISP provided IP, so that I don't have to manually log in and update it each time it changes (without requiring an extended/different URL). With Time Warner I went 6 years without an IP change, and with FIOS I have had my IP change 3 times in the past year.

 

[kevnich2]

Do you use GoDaddy for your DNS? I would recommend switching to a different provider for DNS but that's just my opinion on that. Not a big of GoDaddy's DNS and web hosting infrastracture. As far as dynamic dns for godaddy, I don't see where GoDaddy has any dynamic DNS options unless you're using a different provider such as dyndns/zoneedit, etc for your DNS records.

What kind of website is this for? Personal, business, ecommerce?

 

[Wyndru]

Personal, and I am using GoDaddy for DNS also.

I did find some info on how to use dyndns as part of the DNS records in GoDaddy's interface, I've never done that before so may need to read up on it.

I believe previously all I did was install a dyndns client on my computer which kept checking the IP, and configure something in my dyndns account to somehow redirect traffic. Like I mentioned before people had to put in an extended URL to access my page when it was set up like this. Something like domain.dyndns.com. It was so long ago I don't really remember all of the details though.

I was hoping for something that would allow me to keep my original domain name URL.

 

[kevnich2]

Personal, and I am using GoDaddy for DNS also.

I did find some info on how to use dyndns as part of the DNS records in GoDaddy's interface, I've never done that before so may need to read up on it.

I believe previously all I did was install a dyndns client on my computer which kept checking the IP, and configure something in my dyndns account to somehow redirect traffic. Like I mentioned before people had to put in an extended URL to access my page when it was set up like this. Something like domain.dyndns.com. It was so long ago I don't really remember all of the details though.

I was hoping for something that would allow me to keep my original domain name URL.

You could use dyndns in conjunction with your godaddy dns. The way to accomplish this would be to setup the dyndns client in your router so that it updates automatically. Take whatever the URL Dyn gives you (eg yourwebsite.dyndns.org) and then on your godaddy dns, delete your www A record and create a new cname for www that points to yourwebsite.dyndns.org

What this effectively does is forwards all www.yourwebsite.com to yourwebsite.dyndns.org which is linked to your router's clients dns updater.

 

[kevnich2]

Personal, and I am using GoDaddy for DNS also.

I did find some info on how to use dyndns as part of the DNS records in GoDaddy's interface, I've never done that before so may need to read up on it.

I believe previously all I did was install a dyndns client on my computer which kept checking the IP, and configure something in my dyndns account to somehow redirect traffic. Like I mentioned before people had to put in an extended URL to access my page when it was set up like this. Something like domain.dyndns.com. It was so long ago I don't really remember all of the details though.

I was hoping for something that would allow me to keep my original domain name URL.

On a second note, make sure your really careful if your hosting your own personal website on your own computer. If your permissions, firewall rules, etc aren't absolutely perfect, you could end up compromising your entire computer AND home network. I stopped using my own computer as a server a long time ago and just went with a really cheap hosting personal hosting account and kept everything there. Just my .02

 

[JackMDS]

I thought there were now options on routers to handle some of of this functionality (I have an actiontec from Verizon, but I still need to look into if it supports it).

Some Routers support it. Those that support usually are programmed to support the most known services like DynDNS, No-IP, and TZO (Flasing a capable Router with Tomato firmware yields more choices).

Check your Router's menus For DDNS.

In any case, if you want to use your own Domain Name with a 3rd party DNS service you have to purchase the upgraded account they do not provide it with the free account.

http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-pro-free-trial/

http://www.noip.com/

 

[Mixolydian]

I have my domain hosted with GoDaddy but use DynDNS for all of the DNS services for that domain. Seems to work well. I believe the DynDNS service costs ~$29/year and gives you a lot of flexibility.

 

[Wyndru]

You could use dyndns in conjunction with your godaddy dns. The way to accomplish this would be to setup the dyndns client in your router so that it updates automatically. Take whatever the URL Dyn gives you (eg yourwebsite.dyndns.org) and then on your godaddy dns, delete your www A record and create a new cname for www that points to yourwebsite.dyndns.org

What this effectively does is forwards all www.yourwebsite.com to yourwebsite.dyndns.org which is linked to your router's clients dns updater.

Cool, something like that is what I'm looking for, I'll check that out.

On a second note, make sure your really careful if your hosting your own personal website on your own computer. If your permissions, firewall rules, etc aren't absolutely perfect, you could end up compromising your entire computer AND home network. I stopped using my own computer as a server a long time ago and just went with a really cheap hosting personal hosting account and kept everything there. Just my .02

Thanks for the warning, I realize it is important to be sure everything is secure, and hopefully it is. It's just a image website I wrote in PHP and mysql that allows my family members to log in and upload pictures and videos that they can share with each other. I don't get get much traffic at all, and I don't hand out the address to anyone other than family. Aside from that I've got it pretty locked down with Apache, and it's only allowing traffic on 1 port and it's a random port I used as opposed to the usual 80. And to be honest, there isn't much on my network that would be worth anything to anyone.

 

[Wyndru]

Some Routers support it. Those that support usually are programmed to support the most known services like DynDNS, No-IP, and TZO (Flasing a capable Router with Tomato firmware yields more choices).

Check your Router's menus For DDNS.

In any case, if you want to use your own Domain Name with a 3rd party DNS service you have to purchase the upgraded account they do not provide it with the free account.

http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-pro-free-trial/

http://www.noip.com/

Thanks for the noip reminder, I've heard of it, but never had an account. The actiontec router I have from verizon supports it, and it's free so I gave it a shot. This coupled with the cname change kevnich2 suggested on the godaddy account appears to be working. It even still routes both of my domain names to the correct home pages on the server (although apache is what handles that, so it really shouldn't be any different than it was before).

It's pretty convenient that the routers are supporting this now (even ISP provided routers). The last time I had a need for this was around 2002, and the linksys I had at the time didn't support it, so I was stuck having everyone go to domain.dyndns.org.