I use afraid.org to keep my dynamic dns pointed at my routers ip. With afraid.org dns you only need a curl statement scheduled on the open~~dns~~wrt router to keep the dynamic ip updated.
Afraid.org gives you subdomains on other people's domains, who can decide to stop letting you use them at any moment.
Yeah, you don't have to share yours if you don't want to.
I was assuming that you don't own a domain. If you do why would you use Afraid? There are lots of reliable DNS services to choose from and you can have interface and features that aren't frozen in 1995.
I own a lot of domains. Why would I want to run my own DNS when I can use a simple uncomplicated system that is time proven and reliable. They could of course set it up with a fisher price interface for thumb suckers who need flash. What feature do you need beyond standard records and a simple dynamic feature? The price isn't that bad either.
You don't run your own DNS, they are services hosted by someone else, just like Afraid. The difference, on top of the interface, is that they support modern record types, they have redundant servers all over the world, there's a team working on them instead of just one guy, they have APIs that can let you manage your many domains easier, they have zone backup and restore etc.
I've used Afraid too, back when I was starting out and didn't know any better, but once I've seen some of the other services out there I've never looked back. You'll never know what extra features you could want if your current service doesn't offer you any.
Self hosting doesn't mean you should host everything yourself at home, using a VPS you manage (so the data inside it is still yours) is also a viable option for selfhosting. I myself host some services at home and a few others in a VPS.
As for Dyndns, I've used a few providers over the years. DuckDNS is the one I've been using for 5 years or so and it's not failed me once. Pretty happy with it.
Maybe you could have a duckdns pointing to your dynamic IP and your domains / subdomains with a CNAME pointing to the dyndns address?
Since you run already OpenWrt, you can check out https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/services/ddns/client
There is a list on this page of compatible services. If you don't want to use one more service (DNS), you can use a domain registrar with an API (like porkbun) and find online tools that work with that.
Be aware of the risks of hosting your websites publicly from home, make sure to run them in very isolated environments. Having your VPS compromised is bad, but having your home network compromised is much worse!
Be aware of the risks of hosting your websites publicly from home, make sure to run them in very isolated environments. Having your VPS compromised is bad, but having your home network compromised is much worse!
Agree - Not something I will throw myself into.
Yes I use no-ip but have to confirm the domain name every month or so and cant use my own domain on the free tier. (Maybe im just being cheap) - Also I haven't been able to figure out how I would use / get SSL certificates.
Try duckdns, it doesnt nag you every month and it just works
Yes, I have used it in the past and it was annoying...
You can get SSL certs with letsencrypt, but you need to use the http verification method.
Not anymore, it supports txt records now
That lists afraid.org as a ddns provider.
They are pretty great, I use them as my domain host.
Many DNS providers have an API and are supported by various dynamicDNS clients. I use Cloudflare and the built in client on my Opnsense router.
OpenWRT should have a client too that supports a bunch of services.
VPS with a tunnel between it and home services (Wireguard/Tailscale, etc)in my opinion is Best Way as it isolates your home gateway (no open ports, because you make outbound connections to your VPS), and let VPS handle Identity and Access Management
(Or an equivalent isolating architecture).
Alternatively, Tailscale has a Funnel feature which can route public traffic into your Tailscale network. Though I don't love this approach, it does work for low-volume connections.
There are two options, one is tunneling (e.g. tailscale, cloudfare tunnels, or a VPS either with special software or plain old SSH port forward constant connection). The other option, the most popular answer (I think, influenced by how yoy asked) is Dynamic DNS or DynDNS (e.g. duck, hurricane, freedns, etc.) this second one is like the classic solution.
Script that checks your external IP and updates your DNS provider via API.
I'm using cloudflare as my nameserver and the free API seems to work just fine with ddclient.
You can get super cheap VPSs and use them just as a reverse proxy (with access via VPN). I host 11 servers using one single-core VPS as a reverse proxy. All data resides on premises, in house. I pay 10/yr for VPS. It definitely does not defeat the purpose.
From where can you get a VPS for that price?
Check out low end box. I found coupons for racknerd. I have one VPS that's $10/yr, another that's $18/yr. I've had zero downtime in the 18 months I've used them. No complaints from me. YMMV of course.
Yeah maybe I need to consider this.
Get your own domain, find a free DNS service that provides an API, and it becomes a simple matter of updating a DNS A record whenever your IP changes.
Here's a starting point: https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/dns-providers-who-easily-integrate-with-lets-encrypt-dns-validation/86438
Don't use a DynamicDNS service, they're usually crap and they make you depend on a domain you don't own.
Free Dyndns services seem to be a bit crap
Why do you say that? https://freedns.afraid.org/ and https://www.duckdns.org are very solid and if you're looking for something more corporate even Cloudflare offers that service for free.
DuckDNS is great... but they have had some pretty major outages recently. No complaints, I know it's an extremely valuable free service but it's worth mentioning.
I think you got enough recommendations for several tunneling solutions.
Apart from that (and free DynDNS) you could also use a regular paid DNS provider. Some of them also offer DynDNS or an API. I think I saw some regular providers in the list of my DynDNS client on my router, next to the super cheap or free ones.
If you go down the VPS route, a headscale server on a cheap $3.50 VPS would be the way to go. Wouldn't even have to deal with IP addresses at that point, while still being able to self-host all your services, with the cheap VPS being a glorified switch/firewall.
Namecheap domains include a dynamic DNS application for free and it works well. Be aware that it only runs on Windows.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| DNS | Domain Name Service/System |
| HTTP | Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web |
| HTTPS | HTTP over SSL |
| IP | Internet Protocol |
| SSH | Secure Shell for remote terminal access |
| SSL | Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption |
| TLS | Transport Layer Security, supersedes SSL |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
| VPS | Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting) |
| nginx | Popular HTTP server |
9 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
[Thread #891 for this sub, first seen 27th Jul 2024, 19:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
I've used big names like ns1 and Cloudflare for free.
Cloudflare has an api for easy dynamic dns. I use oznu/docker-cloudflare-ddns to manage this, it's super easy:
docker run \
-e API_KEY=xxxxxxx \
-e ZONE=example.com \
-e SUBDOMAIN=subdomain \
oznu/cloudflare-ddns
Then I just make a CNAME for each of my public facing services to point to 'subdomain.example.com' and use a reverse proxy to get incoming traffic to the right service.
Wow thanks everyone. I think I need to take another look at some of the DynDNS provides and digest all your great feedback.
Id like to go beyond personal self hosting stuff and maybe run some stuff that requires Federation. Im just thinking at the moment.
I've been using No-IP free plan for years without issues. Inputted the credentials to my routers DDNS client and then basically forgot about it. Free users need to confirm their account once a month via email but that's just one click.
If your domain registrar happens to have an API to update DNS entries, you could implement DDNS yourself by writing a simple automated script to check the external IP (e.g. via ipify.org) and if it's changed from the last check then call the API to update the DNS entries.
No-IP
Don't recommend that. There are plenty of better alternatives such as https://freedns.afraid.org/ and https://www.duckdns.org/ that aren't run by predatory companies that may pull the plug like DynDNS did.
Sure. I'm not recommending anything, just stating what has worked for me. For simple use cases, I think most of the DDNS services are pretty much the same anyway and it's easy to switch to an another one if one stops working for some reason.
Yeah been using No-ip free but I worry that one day I will forget to confirm and ill ge cut-off.
Don't expose your services directly to the internet. Instead rent a VPS and the use Wireguard to bring the traffic back home. In your home network your services should be in there own VLAN and everything should be isolated and sandboxed. Everything has the potential to be compromised so always practice least privilege and defense in depth.
Or just set up your home network and services properly. Ideally with reverse proxies and maybe a proper DMZ.
Many registrars let you buy a domain and set up dynamic DNS for it within their system so you can own a domain and get dyndns on it.
Otherwise you could accomplish it with a VPS but you'd only need the smallest one available because it would just need to run nginx to forward to your home ip (and a small tool to update that IP when it changes). So you could probably get something for less than $5/mo.
I use digital ocean as dns host. They have an API, so I check my IP with a script and update if needed.
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