Reef Angel Forum

Dynamic DNS discussions have popped up around the forum at times. This is just to allow a domain name to point to your IP address of your Cable/DSL modem. This isn't required for the portal since it is smart enough to log whatever IP address it was last updated from. However, this is a topic for those of us who do not use the Portal and rely on either the Android Status App, Iphone App, Windows Gadget, Java Status App (or even the future Windows App). The 2 main services that people have been using are DynDns.com (aka, Dyn.com) or No-ip.com (with this one being free). These are nice, but require you to use a "free" / pre-existing domain name from their list of domains.

Since I own my own domain and utilize it for various other things, I've been looking at ways to customize my DNS entries and be able to use my own domain with a dynamic DNS entry / option. I have found a service that allows you to use your own domain with their DNS servers and also create dynamic DNS entries off of it. They also have free dynamic DNS service that allows you to create up to 5 dynamic hosts per account (I think it is 5....but still, you can get at least 1).

What I'm getting at is this, would people be interested in having an "exclusive" or "cool" dynamic DNS entry with something like:

• yourhost.ra-controller.com
• yourhost.racontroller.com

If people are interested in something like this, I am willing to purchase the most popular domain choice (from the poll) and then put it into the pool of domains to allow people to create free accounts and have their own dynamic DNS name for their reefangel controller. The website that I would be doing this through is: http://freedns.afraid.org/

I would also either write up an article/guide on how to set this up and use it, or have somebody else do it.
Anyways, I would love to hear your feedback and see what you guys think. If you have other domain suggestions, that's great, just post them in the comments. I personally would be leaning towards ra-controller.com because the hyphen (-) makes it easier to read and distinguish the name, but I'd be ok with either domain.

I do this with dyndns and my hosting company for my current domain. Its quite easy to make a CNAME record to point my domain to my dyndns record.

For instance www.easte.net points to easte.dyndns.org

Anyway its a cool concept but i have a question. Would it not be easier for you to query the portal and get the users last good ip that is sent and then users wouldn't need dyndns or a domainname at all?

Either way its cool.

Technically roberto could make a subdomain under reefangel.com for users and do the same thing..


And actually since he already has your ip you could have binder.reefangel.com point to your RA

Now if he doesnt run his own dns server, it could you could use proxy.aspx to get to your ra also and have forumname.reefangel.com work

Sorry roberto had to throw it out there maybe charge a subscription to register the dns entry. $5-$10 /year is competitive and users dont ever have to deal with getting dynamic dns working

I don't host my DNS server
Curt, how would one update the entry with new ip address?
PC software?

I can show you a way to fake it... With wildcard DNS for a reefangel.com subdomain and a URL redirect to proxy.aspx.... I could set something up as a test to demonstrate.

rimai wrote:I don't host my DNS server
Curt, how would one update the entry with new ip address?
PC software?

yeah, PC software OR it can be done with scripts. If you look at this page, there is a long list of clients/scripts and ways to update the accounts. http://freedns.afraid.org/scripts/freedns.clients.php
We could update automatically with a script, something like lnevo said.

Just a quick update.....I'm actually moving forward with this topic / discussion.
I have registered a domain just for this usage and am in the process of setting things up.
The domain is: tank-stats.com
I will post a new topic when things are up and going.

Here is my question.... Any server admin out there will probably be able to point me to the right direction.
If I were to host an DNS server, can anyone just grab a copy of the A records? It is public afterall, right?

You can prevent an ls on the domain so that you can just say give me all the addresses. But individual random queries would have to be answered. But yes you could disable an arbitrary listing. Also thinking about it you could also make the use and registration of the hosts be an option users would have to opt-in for. So suddenly people who don't want/ask for it aren't published.

^^^ Not a lengthy page. You basically just need to specify which servers can do zone transfer. Forgot the terminology...been a while

After the no-ip debarcle the last week, I might be keen for this.

I went through with this. I just created a topic about it. For those interested, check it out:
http://forum.reefangel.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4753