DynDNS works great! But help me understand why...

[IndyJaws]

Apologies in advance for seeming clueless. I just want to know why something is working (naturally curious, I suppose).

So I've set up a WHS and have been very happy with it. Now that I've got the proper port forwarding working on my router (done manually, since UPnP didn't work that well) and a static IP set for my server, I've been able to remotely connect using the username.homeserver.com website.

Not satisfied with just that, I decided to set up Dynamic DNS through DynDNS. Set up the account and entered the details in my router (it has a separate menu for configuring DynDNS, making it very easy). Connected to my server the first time I tried it. Great!

But here's my question. How did the DynDNS link know to automatically direct me to my homeserver.com website? It took the IP address assigned to my router and and somehow knew that's where I wanted to go. How? I have several computers connected to the router with NAT IP addresses. How did it know that the place I wanted it to go was my WHS logon page, as opposed to trying to connect to one of the other PC's on the network?

I realize these are completely idiotic questions, and I should be happy it just works, but I really want to better understand networking. Hardware, I got down. But I want to keep on learning. Can anyone help me understand?

Thanks in advance!
Indy

 

[freegeeks]

Originally posted by: IndyJaws
Apologies in advance for seeming clueless. I just want to know why something is working (naturally curious, I suppose).

So I've set up a WHS and have been very happy with it. Now that I've got the proper port forwarding working on my router (done manually, since UPnP didn't work that well) and a static IP set for my server, I've been able to remotely connect using the username.homeserver.com website.

Not satisfied with just that, I decided to set up Dynamic DNS through DynDNS. Set up the account and entered the details in my router (it has a separate menu for configuring DynDNS, making it very easy). Connected to my server the first time I tried it. Great!

But here's my question. How did the DynDNS link know to automatically direct me to my homeserver.com website? It took the IP address assigned to my router and and somehow knew that's where I wanted to go. How? I have several computers connected to the router with NAT IP addresses. How did it know that the place I wanted it to go was my WHS logon page, as opposed to trying to connect to one of the other PC's on the network?

I realize these are completely idiotic questions, and I should be happy it just works, but I really want to better understand networking. Hardware, I got down. But I want to keep on learning. Can anyone help me understand?

Thanks in advance!
Indy

dyndns is only translating a domain name to an ip address, it has nothing to do with connecting to the correct service on your server. WHS is a service running on port 80 tcp. When you read a webpage from your server (http), you are actually setting up a tcp connection to port 80 on your router using the public ip address (translated by DNS). Your router will forward this request because of the port forwarding you configured to the right internal (private) ip address.

 

[JackMDS]

Since your Router is DynDNS compatible it sends evrey time that your Extrenal IP changes the new WAN IP number to your account on the DyDNS server.

Every time that there is a request on the INterent to connect to your server the request goed to DyDNS that translate the request to your current WAN IP number.

In case of the address username.homeserver.com, WHS has s software routine that send your WAN IP to Microsoft DNS service and it works the same way as DyDNS.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
In case of the address username.homeserver.com, WHS has s software routine that send your WAN IP to Microsoft DNS service and it works the same way as DyDNS.

Yeah, for Windows Home Server, I'd just stick with Microsoft's DNS service as long as it's working for you.

 

[IndyJaws]

Thanks to all of you who replied. Freegeeks really helped me understand with "When you read a webpage from your server (http), you are actually setting up a tcp connection to port 80 on your router using the public ip address (translated by DNS). Your router will forward this request because of the port forwarding you configured to the right internal (private) ip address." Now I understand that when the IP (as translated by DNS) is hit, it's port 80 that's causing it to display the WHS page. One of those eureka moments...now I feel stupid for asking.

One reason why I wanted to use the DynDNS option was because my work blocks *.homeserver.com, but they don't block *.dyndns.org (don't ask me why they don't do both). Unfortunately, there's still some firewall trickery going on there, since I still get timeouts when trying to remote access my PC at home. I can still access shares, but it won't let me remotely connect to a specific PC. One way or another, I'll figure it out.

Thanks to everyone for your help!