What software do I need to become my OWN DNS (domain name server/service), even with a dynamic IP address?

Question

Okay, there are plenty of DNSs out there. Obviously, or we wouldn't be able to have any kind of "www.AnyName.any" out there. What do they use to serve domain names, and how can I get that same stuff to do it myself (yes, along with using the software that updates my changing IP address with the domain name)?

Okay, so I need software that updates the domain name with my dynamic IP address (since I don't want to try to afford a static IP address), so what software do I use to do that? No, I'm not asking who can do that for me, I'm asking how I can do it for myself.

And then once I've gotten dynamic IP address updating handled, how do I serve my domain name out there by myself--what software do I need to get in order to link my domain name to that IP address (by my own DNS)?

Obviously it's being done. Now how do *I* do it?

Will you come back and see my responses to yours, please?

Thanks,

Mike Christensen

Answer 1

If you're working on a dynamic IP then you're going to need a service like DynDNS (www.dyndns.com) to update your IP address.

First of all you need to register a domain name, you can do that via dyndns.com or via another registrar (tucows, netsol, godaddy,...). You set the domain up to use the Dynamic DNS provider's name servers.

Some routers will have an update tool built in, that can send your new IP address to your Dynamic DNS provider. If your router or modem doesn't support this then you need to set up a client on your computer to send these updates.

Some other things to watch out for when you're setting up your own server: some ISPs might block access to ports like 80 (HTTP), 25 (SMTP), 21 (FTP) for incoming connections to your IP.

And if you have a regular, residential type connection, then your upstream bandwidth is likely to be a lot smaller then your downstream bandwidth. Depending on the type of service you're going to be running and the traffic you're expecting, this might not be suitable for your purposes.

Edit:

It's not a good idea to run your own nameservers on a dynamic IP connection.

First of all you are required to have 2 nameservers for a domain, which you probably don't have with your connection type.

The main problem however is that glue records (linking ns.yourdomain to your IP on the root servers) have a Time To Live (TTL) of 48 hours. The TTL of your dynamically hosted A records will be very short (a few minutes max) so that you have a minimal downtime when your IP changes. On the glue records you can't change the default TTL, this means that you risk having 48 hour downtimes for users who have the old IP address cached.

If you really want to run your own nameservers then I'd advise you to upgrade to a connection with a static IP, but frankly I don't see much advantage in having your own nameservers.

More info:

http://www.dyndns.com/support/kb/glue_re...

http://www.dyndns.com/support/kb/what_is...

http://www.dyndns.com/support/kb/dns_cac...

Edit 2:

Yup, good choice.

The dyndns prices are here: http://www.dyndns.com/services/pricing/

But I'm sure you can find cheaper as well if you shop around.

For example there's a sale at godaddy.com at the moment with .info domains for $1.99.

Good luck.