Recommended dynamic DNS services - and how to configure them?
I want to make it easy to find my eeePc server that I'm going to leave running on my boat in Belgium, it's connecting using a 3-G router which offers four possible DDNS services:- dyndns.org freedns.afraid.org www.zoneedit.com www.no-ip.com Does anyone have any experience of using any of these services, any recommendations? Next - I've tried to set up with freedns.afraid.org and I don't really unbderstand what I'm doing! I've created an account there and have entered the details of that account into the 3-G router configuration. What I don't understand is the last parameter it asks for which is DDNS. Presumably DDNS is the domain name tat you select as the one to access the dynamic IP server - however I don't understand where I get that from at freedns.afraid.org. -- Chris Green
On 10 December 2010 22:20, Chris G <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
I want to make it easy to find my eeePc server that I'm going to leave running on my boat in Belgium, it's connecting using a 3-G router which offers four possible DDNS services:- dyndns.org freedns.afraid.org www.zoneedit.com www.no-ip.com
Does anyone have any experience of using any of these services, any recommendations?
I've used dyndns.com on an ad-hoc basis some time ago, and it was a total piece of cake to setup the free service they provide. I didn't set this up on my ADSL router though, but I believe the router did have options to set it up. I don't know how these service providers compare, so I'm afraid I won't be much help in that aspect. I imagine each provider should have some sort of guide to let users configure their hardware correctly. - Srdjan
I've used no-ip several times. 1. Sign up for a free account 2. Sign in and add a host (select a free name like mybox.no-ip.com) 3. Goto whatismyip.com or ipchicken.com and get your public IP and add it as the address of mybox.no-ip.com in your account 4. Download the free app/script whilst logged in and add it as a start up item so when you eeePc boots up it fires up the client automatigcally 5. The client checks your public IP address and you IP address assigned to mybox.no-ip.com and if you IP has changed updates it so its always accurate 6. Bask in your greatness. -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ There are 10 kinds of people in the world; Those who understand Vigesimal, and J others...?
Forgot to say; Don't forget to check weather or not your 3G provider allows incoming connections, sometimes you don't have a publicly route-able address an instead you're NAT'd behind something (router or otherwise). And, don't forget to do any port forwarding if needed :) -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ There are 10 kinds of people in the world; Those who understand Vigesimal, and J others...?
On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 11:09:15PM +0000, James Bensley wrote:
Forgot to say;
Don't forget to check weather or not your 3G provider allows incoming connections, sometimes you don't have a publicly route-able address an instead you're NAT'd behind something (router or otherwise). And, don't forget to do any port forwarding if needed :)
Yes, that does seem to be an issue here. The IP address reported by my 3-G router is quite different from that reported by the remote systems I connect to - *and* I seem quite unable to get connections from outside back into the eeePc. I think I may have to do what I did at work for a while and set up a reverse tunnel through an ssh connection set up from the eeePc end. That'll will require some searching of my memory on how to do it! -- Chris Green
On 11 December 2010 09:31, Chris G <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
Yes, that does seem to be an issue here. The IP address reported by my 3-G router is quite different from that reported by the remote systems I connect to - *and* I seem quite unable to get connections from outside back into the eeePc.
Well, what is the IP address reported by your router and what is the IP address you get from say whatismyip.com or ipchicken.com? (so we can see if its an RFC1918 address). -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ There are 10 kinds of people in the world; Those who understand Vigesimal, and J others...?
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 11:01:24AM +0000, James Bensley wrote:
On 11 December 2010 09:31, Chris G <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
Yes, that does seem to be an issue here. The IP address reported by my 3-G router is quite different from that reported by the remote systems I connect to - *and* I seem quite unable to get connections from outside back into the eeePc.
Well, what is the IP address reported by your router and what is the IP address you get from say whatismyip.com or ipchicken.com?
The router thinks its WAN address is 172.23.75.228 but all the remote systems I connect to report my IP address as 91.87.217.68. When the router restarts for whatever reason the 172.23.75.228 will change but the 91.87.217.68 seems to be pretty constant. -- Chris Green
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 05:36:46PM +0000, Chris G wrote:
The router thinks its WAN address is 172.23.75.228 but all the remote systems I connect to report my IP address as 91.87.217.68. When the router restarts for whatever reason the 172.23.75.228 will change but the 91.87.217.68 seems to be pretty constant.
172.23.* is in the rfc1918 private address space, hence why you can't route to it from the internet, there is most likely some kind of nat taking place on 91.87.217.68. Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 11:01:03AM +0000, Adam Bower wrote:
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 05:36:46PM +0000, Chris G wrote:
The router thinks its WAN address is 172.23.75.228 but all the remote systems I connect to report my IP address as 91.87.217.68. When the router restarts for whatever reason the 172.23.75.228 will change but the 91.87.217.68 seems to be pretty constant.
172.23.* is in the rfc1918 private address space, hence why you can't route to it from the internet, there is most likely some kind of nat taking place on 91.87.217.68.
Yes, that's the conclusion I came to after some mucking about, so I need some way to tunnel back through an outgoing connection. It looks as if openvpn should do what I want, I just need to get back to the boat again to set it up. -- Chris Green
On 10/12/10 22:20, Chris G wrote:
I want to make it easy to find my eeePc server that I'm going to leave running on my boat in Belgium, it's connecting using a 3-G router which offers four possible DDNS services:- dyndns.org freedns.afraid.org www.zoneedit.com www.no-ip.com
Does anyone have any experience of using any of these services, any recommendations?
I agree with James. I have been running 5 virtual hosts via no-ip's free service for some years now without any problem. Set up via my router (Thompson Speedtouch ST585) was very simple. -- nev
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 07:24:09AM +0000, nev young wrote:
On 10/12/10 22:20, Chris G wrote:
I want to make it easy to find my eeePc server that I'm going to leave running on my boat in Belgium, it's connecting using a 3-G router which offers four possible DDNS services:- dyndns.org freedns.afraid.org www.zoneedit.com www.no-ip.com
Does anyone have any experience of using any of these services, any recommendations?
I agree with James. I have been running 5 virtual hosts via no-ip's free service for some years now without any problem. Set up via my router (Thompson Speedtouch ST585) was very simple.
OK, thanks for all the advice - I think my problem is now lack of ability of the 3-G connection to allow incoming connections. -- Chris Green
On 11/12/10 09:32, Chris G wrote:
Does anyone have any experience of using any of these services, any recommendations? I've used dyndns and no-ip.com before and both OK. no-ip.com used to regularly bug me with an email saying that as my configuration had not been updated in ages, unless I clicked the link on the email, my no-ip account would be closed. AFAIK the client was running perfectly well all the time, just that there were no changes of IP address. In the end, I coughed up for a subscription.
OK, thanks for all the advice - I think my problem is now lack of ability of the 3-G connection to allow incoming connections.
Is this because the router is unable to allow incoming connections, or that you just haven't set up port forwarding. I noticed you other posts about vpns etc. Previously, I've just set up port forwarding on the router to a specific machine. That machine's running a ssh server. I've then tunnelled the ports I'm interested in over the ssh link, and bob's your uncle. Not sure, but I think this may be easier to configure than a VPN. Depends why you want to talk to this machine? Steve
On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 09:44:03PM +0000, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 11/12/10 09:32, Chris G wrote:
Does anyone have any experience of using any of these services, any recommendations? I've used dyndns and no-ip.com before and both OK. no-ip.com used to regularly bug me with an email saying that as my configuration had not been updated in ages, unless I clicked the link on the email, my no-ip account would be closed. AFAIK the client was running perfectly well all the time, just that there were no changes of IP address. In the end, I coughed up for a subscription.
OK, thanks for all the advice - I think my problem is now lack of ability of the 3-G connection to allow incoming connections.
Is this because the router is unable to allow incoming connections, or that you just haven't set up port forwarding. I noticed you other posts about vpns etc. Previously, I've just set up port forwarding on the router to a specific machine. That machine's running a ssh server.
It's because there's effectively (as I understand it) a NAT router/firewall operated by the telephone company between my 3-G connection and the 'real' internet. The 3-G router on the boat has, as its WAN address, an RFC1918 'private' address, there is then the telecom provider's router (or whatever it may be) between that address and the public internet. Thus, even though I have port mapped *my* router connections from outside don't work because the telecom provider's 'router' doesn't map them to my router.
I've then tunnelled the ports I'm interested in over the ssh link, and bob's your uncle.
Not sure, but I think this may be easier to configure than a VPN. Depends why you want to talk to this machine?
Yes, it could well be easier, I've done it before and once you've got your mind round the ssh parameters it's easy enough. The difficulty though is how to make it restart automatically if the connection dies (which I guarantee it will at intervals). I get the feeling that a VPN may have ready made tools for keeping itself alive. -- Chris Green
On 13/12/10 22:49, Chris G wrote:
Yes, it could well be easier, I've done it before and once you've got your mind round the ssh parameters it's easy enough. The difficulty though is how to make it restart automatically if the connection dies (which I guarantee it will at intervals). I get the feeling that a VPN may have ready made tools for keeping itself alive.
Agreed that VPN may be able to keep itself alive. I've previously used smoothwall firewalls and used their built in vpns which stayed connected most of the time with no problems. I looked at the Openvpn quick start guide. I think I've tried to understand that before. When I looked again today, I thought "Good luck with that!" :-) Should you want to try the SSH route, this page may help a bit. http://www.vdomck.org/2005/11/reversing-ssh-connection.html You'll probably have to do ssh with passwordless logins (i.e. key logins). This occurred to me. You could set up a cron job at home that attempted to "touch" a file on your boat via the ssh link every hour say. Set up a similar cron job on your boat that checks the access time of the file. If it's more than an hour old, then your link's gone down, and you need to restart the relevant service. However there's probably a much more elegant solution out there somewhere! HTH. Let us know you get on. Good luck with the VPN! Steve
On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 11:08:40PM +0000, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Should you want to try the SSH route, this page may help a bit. http://www.vdomck.org/2005/11/reversing-ssh-connection.html
A read through there was useful, his approach to keeping the ssh connection working uses autossh which does almost all I need. I can just install autossh on the eeePC and it will maintain (or restart as necessary) an ssh connection to my home server machine. I can use that ssh to open up some port or other to allow me to reverse tunnel an ssh connection from the home server to the eeePC - and that's all I need, job done basically. Autossh does the difficult bit of keeping an ssh connection alive on the unattended eeePC. It's available from the Ubuntu repositories too. -- Chris Green
participants (6)
-
Adam Bower -
Chris G -
James Bensley -
nev young -
Srdjan Todorovic -
steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk