Hi, started self hosting quite a few things and would like a domain to use for when I’m out and about instead of having to remember what my IP is currently. What are the newest providers of services that can accomplish this?
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I recommend deSEC.io, it’s free. They offer both full DNS hosting (so you can update the A/AAAA records for one of your own domains through their API) and dynamic DNS with subdomains under
.dedyn.io. Both variants are widely supported, for example OpenWRT and ddclient include support out of the box.If you choose to use them for DNS hosting I should mention that deSEC is a German service with a mission similar to Let’s Encrypt, only for DNS: they’ll host anybody’s DNS for free on one condition, that they enable DNSSEC. They generate and maintain it for you, you just have to enable it at your registrar (which amounts to copy-pasting the keys). (If you just use .dedyn.io for DDNS you don’t have to worry about this.)
Thanks for mentioning desec.io! I’ve read about it in c’t a few years ago, but didn’t find it a few months ago.
For a simple dynamic DNS, I have been using https://www.duckdns.org/ for a few years and been happy so far
https://freedns.afraid.org/ free, reliable and isn’t run for profit.
Each domain is run independently. Unfortunately, I have the worst luck in choosing them. The past 3 I’ve used have folded, and the one I’m on now (by an established operator) isn’t reliable. Most endpoints fail to resolve the subdomain DNS, instead returning the parent IP.
Obviously you should pick a domain that is run by josh (the guy that runs freedns.afraid.org) such as the mooo.com and you won’t have issues. https://freedns.afraid.org/domain/registry/
That was my line of thinking. However, my subdomain.chickenkiller.com frequently (but but universally) resolves to the IP of regular chickenkiller.com. I don’t believe it’s an issue with my config, since my previous domains (not run by josh) worked just fine until they folded.
I never had issues with josh domains, maybe contact him?
What makes you think he doesn’t make a profit on the paid for plans?
Oh I know he does, the project has almost 3x times the money in donations/premium features than what is required to run it. however it was never about making profit nor he will sell out to a bigger company and suddenly shutdown all free services. Actually I hope he continuous to make a profit and increase it because he deserves it.
Making a profit =/= running something for profit
Don’t know why you’re yelling at me, I just said he makes profit, specifically from me as I’ve used the service since it was only free.
Lol, they’re not? THIS WOULD BE YELLING AT YOU. This is me calmly explaining that “running for profit” and “running at a profit” isn’t the same thing.
Why you talking all middle volume at me, gaaaah!
Who’s yelling? I’m pointing out that one can make a profit without that necessarily being the goal.
If it’s just for personal use, Tailscale is dead simple. But it doesn’t use your domain; it assigns permanent Tailscale IPs to your nodes. And once you’re connected, it allows you to use your local IPs.
If you want a domain to point to your stuff, I found CloudFlare Tunnels to be very easy to set up. I use it for services that I want to share with others, like Overseerr.
@mihnt Well, you could try Dyndns?
Well yes, I looked at it but decided to ask if there are other options instead of just diving into the only thing I knew. I haven’t messed with this stuff in more than a decade so thought it’d be better to ask around before I went with something.
@mihnt OTOH, if it’s just you looking for access, consider Tailscale.
Duck DNS
quack 🦆
Isn’t it funny: I want to selfhost, and therefore I need a service provider…
Well, unfortunately we can’t escape our ISP and a DNS provider.
I mean it is possible to run your own authoritative nameservers on a server you own with a static IP. It’s a pretty irresponsible thing to self host, but it is possible :)
Assuming you’ve a static IP and you’re irresponsible :P
I don’t need it. Realistically I just just memorize my IP and wouldn’t have to worry about it. I was just checking for convenience sake.
Buy a domain from Cloudflare and use your firewall (pfSense, OPNsense, etc) to do the dynamic DNS updates for you.
No need to buy the domain from cf, you can just set nameservers
True, but there are no extra costs added to domains on Cloudflare
Hmm, you’re actually right
But I would like to add that namecheap has coupons for the first year. So you can register a new cheap domain every year
So also it’s probably a good idea to register it from nc and then transfer to cloudflare
edit: lol, i’m even transferring some of my domains to cf right now (although cf is not the company I wish to trust, but namecheap is not one of them too)
Similar to what I do. I just have a script that triggers on IP change directly on my router.
I use route53 APIs and just directly update the AAAA and A records. Set a low TTL and you don’t really have to worry about any middle men services.
All you need is a simple script.
I’ve been happy with DuckDNS. Free, simple, and reliable.
In addition to all of the suggestions here you can easily do this with almost all major DNS providers today like Cloudflare and AWS Route 53, there are many community containers and scripts to keep the record in sync depending on what else you are using on your network.
If you’re seeking a modern, popular solution these days, Tailscale stands out. It offers an all-encompassing solution for exposing endpoints and managing access control, eliminating the need for implementing numerous components yourself.
The modern solution would be buying a domain and pointing the AAAA-record to your server’s ipv6 address.
… that may change at any time.
If your provider keeps changing your ipv6 prefix, then you still need dyndns.
With a static prefix, you don’t.No I just have a service that waits for the up to change and when it does it runs a script that updates my AAAA record.
Not if you use a Hurricane Electric tunnel for ipv6 transit. My ISP hands out V6 addresses and I still use HE so I get a stable, globally routable /48 that moves with me (I had to switch ISPs recently and I just had to update my tunnel and everything just worked).
True, but that goes back to the irony of “I want to selfhost, and therefore I need a service provider…”, in this case HE. And won’t take of the IPv4 issue, we can’t just assume every network we use to connect to a home setup will be IPv6 capable. At that point you can just pick a Cloudflare tunnel and have it all working.
IPv6 typically assigns blocks to endpoints, not single WAN IPs (ie there is no NAT).
Changing this often would be absolute chaos for all connected devices, even if they’re configured correctly.
Yes ISPs do assign IPv6 blocks via Prefix Delegation, the thing is that Prefix Delegation is done over DHCP. They’ll assign a block and if your router/device is restarts they’ll just give you a new prefix. In some even more annoying cases you can even get a new prefix whenever the lease expires.
Cloudflare has dynamic DNS as well as a client to run on your server that will update automatically for you.
You can simply use a DNS provider like Cloudflare DNS along with ddclient
This is the way. ddclient can work with lots of DNS providers that have APIs https://ddclient.net/protocols.html, but Cloudflare has a lot of advantages.
What kinds of advantages?
