Lazycoder

Dynamic DNS services I use

I’ve never liked the idea of my web hosting company providing my DNS resolution for my sites. It makes my sites less portable. When I want to change web hosts, I have to wait while the old host and the new host get together and transfer my hosting information. There are usually problems and both of them point the finger at the other one. So I took the leap a while back and signed up for a dynamic DNS provider.

A Dynamic DNS service allows you to have more control over where your domain names point. After you sign up, you enter your domain names and sub domain names then assign the IP addresses they should resolve to yourself. If you want to host your domain on your home PC or a friends server and your IP address changes from time to time, this makes it easy to update the IP address where your domain resides. Some services include a small client you can download and install that will update your dynamic DNS provider with your current IP address when it changes. Very useful for dial-up, cable-modem, and DSL users who don’t have a static IP address.

Other benefits of controlling your domains DNS include the ability to host sub-domains on different servers than your main web hosts server. I’ll often set up a sub-domain for an application that I want to try out and point it to my home server, where I have much faster access to settings, databases, and other resources, before I install it on my web hosts server.

To use a Dynamic DNS provider, sign up and point your web domains nameserver settings to the nameservers they provider tells you.

no-ip.com - I’ve used them for this domain for years. I’ve never had a change take more than a few minutes to take effect. They provide free domain hosting via several pre-set domains. Or you can pay something like $25/year and use your own domain. I primarily use their DNS hosting service, but they also include mail hosting, domain registration, monitoring, and SSL certificates.

EveryDNS.net – Free (as in beer) DNS hosting. They can handle sub-domains, MX records, CNAMES, everything related to DNS. I’m using them to provide DNS resolution for my scottkoon.org domain. Never had a problem. They don’t have as many services as no-ip.com; But if all you want is dynamic DNS hosting, they work great.