Dynamic DNS services

kwikbreaks

Something about DynDNS annoyed me years ago and I swapped over to no-ip.org. Now no-ip were annoying in that they forced you to login to their site every month to keep the domain active. This month they have deleted the domain with no prior warning and just sent an email to that effect which is very annoying.

It looks like dyndns have no free option any more or at least I can't see one. So - can somebody recommend a free dynamic dns service.

John_Gray

Someone as switched on as yourself has undoubtedly worked through the hits resulting from Googling "free dynamic dns service". Did none appeal?

Or can someone invent a script to enable automatic logon on a three-weekly basis?

kwikbreaks

I was just looking for a recommendation. Obviously all free services will be angling to get you to pay it's just a matter of how annoying they are. So far as I'm concerned no-ip can shove their service where the sun don't shine if they delete my subdomain without any prior warning ( and yes I did check the spam folder to make certain).

ATM I'm using a subdomain of one of my own domains as my IP doesn't change often but when it does there will be a delay before it works again even after manually updating the DNS as I have no way to stop it being cached. I may end up just using the plain IP and altering it as needed.

debitcardmayhem

Just a question really , what is behind your i.p. address that you wish to access?

kwikbreaks

Mostly webcams although I do have a NAS with an FTP server option and a software defined radio I play with remotely sometimes. I mostly use LogMeIn for remote desktop but also run VNC as a backup if I have to use a tablet rather than a PC.

debitcardmayhem

Ah OK , I was thinkings along the lines of the NAS pushing it out to you say via email or a put to your domain page, when it changes, or even your router doing the same , if you have access to a login in for either since they will be normally running a linux variant (i.e. busybox in most cases) you could create a cron job or a shell script which runs at startup and sleeps say for xx mins and checks if it has changed and thus let you know. The neatest way of course is to have a replacement for the interface up command on your router and then it happens virtually immediately after it changes. Just ideas buddy really

debitcardmayhem

I have a buffalo nas which allows you to use Buffalos dynamic addresses , but I honestly haven't ever tried it.

kwikbreaks

My NAS is a D-Link. I'll look at what is available with that. One IP cam has some sort of dynamic dns update facility I'm not currently using so I'll look at that too.

The main problem with manual updates is that a simple DNS facility such as mine provided by 123 is really intended for fixed IP use so the URL to IP relationship gets cached around the world's DNS servers and any change made to the definitive DNS can take hours to propagate. There appears to be no obvious way I could stop that caching which dynamic services must do.

The main annoyance is that I provide a weather cam and demo IP cam on a website and having outages of those looks very amateurish.

===

Excellent - D-Link provide a free DDNS too so I've set that up.

neilwoods

Had to laugh at this, having to log in once every 30 days, is to taxing. Then complaining how amateurish it makes you look, instead of paying about £8 a year for service which is clearly used for business use.

S0litaire

I've been using no-ip for months now never had a problem with it.

Sounds like you didn't set up the dynamic update client properly! it's easy to set up as a cron job in Linux and even easier to do in windows!

http://www.noip.com/support/knowledgebase/why-is-my-hostname-missing-or-deleted-what-do-i-do/

noip.com wrote:

Free hostnames are deleted after 30 days of inactivity. Inactivity is defined as when a host has not been updated or 'touched' via the web interface or a dynamic update client.

Anyhoo it's only £16/£17 a year for the paid version with noip

maniacmartin

http://freedns.afraid.org/ is worth checking out. As far as I can tell it's run as a non-profit.