Point Domain Name to Home Server?

jardows

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I want to purchase a domain name and have it pointed to my server at home. I'm looking for some recommendations on how to do this. I really am trying to think of a way to give you more information, but I'm kinda lost at this point, so have at!
 
We used no-ip for years for this. They also offer some other services that may help depending on what services you want to use. Dyndns is another big one. Both have agents that can run off a machine that will check the public ip and change the dns for you.
 
You can use Cloudflare to do this if your router will support it. Works well.
 
Depending on what your intended use case is and what your knowledge level is, this is simple.

Purchase your domain name, get Route53 DNS from Amazon AWS (It's like $0.50/month). Delegate your nameservers to Route53.
If you have a computer running all the time, like a home server, you can run a script that updates the Dynamic DNS with Amazon whenever the IP address changes.
 
I know Route53 is dirt-cheap - but for those who are purists about "free", you can do the same thing with Hurricane Electric's DNS service (dns.he.net).
 
I know Route53 is dirt-cheap - but for those who are purists about "free", you can do the same thing with Hurricane Electric's DNS service (dns.he.net).


I used to use HE's dns service but after the 3rd outage in a year I moved to Route 53. Like you said its dirt cheap and rock solid.


OP.
What is your ultimate goal? What are you trying to accomplish?
 
Those were very helpful. The "howto" link mentioned that if I were to setup my own DNS server, I'd need two static ip addresses, mainly so I could have a primary and secondary server. Is that absolutely necessary? Is it possible to set this up with only one DNS server, since I really don't want to pay for a 2nd IP address?
Second IP address / server is not "required".

Your best bet is to use a service that is designed for this.
 
Second IP address / server is not "required".

Your best bet is to use a service that is designed for this.
I understand this, but I am looking for a learning experience more than anything, so setting up my own DNS server is not out of the picture!
 
Ultimately, what are you trying to host? Hosting your down DNS server is different from hosting your own PUBLIC DNS server. I use a Cisco router to host my DNS at home, but I do not have a public DNS server. In fact, a good number of ISPs disallow this as someone could potentially poison the DNS Cache. I use NameCheap for my Domain name and they also host the DNS as well. I think I pay about $9.00 a year. After you get your domain, then you just have to configure your router/firewalls to allow inbound traffic to whatever you are going to be hosting. They also allow you to use your own DNS servers if you so choose.
 
What I'm trying to accomplish is web, chat, and email servers with signed SSL certificates. It's a hobby/learning project, so I'd like to make it as close to a "real" business environment as possible, but as cheaply as possible. I have no problems with a remote DNS server, such as afraid.org or no-ip, but I would learn more by setting up my own. And I mean an actual name resolver, not a proxy or caching server. AFAIK, I don't have any particular restrictions with my Internet account, but will work with that if encountered.
 
Real businesses use Route 53, No-Ip, etc....

If you want to learn setup an internal DNS server. No need to open yourself up to attacks by having a improperly configured DNS server.
 
I understand this, but I am looking for a learning experience more than anything, so setting up my own DNS server is not out of the picture!

Zytrax has good resources on this google "zytrax bind" - their rocket science book is available in full online.

If you want to do it right, get two $5/month VPS from Linode or DigitalOcean, run your namerservers there. You can probably run most of what you want on a single $5/month Linode instance.
Best practice is two real, separate nameservers. 1034 "requires" two nameservers by 'administrative fiat' -- there is no technical requirement, though some registrars will enforce this.
 
So, just an update, this ended up being a very simple process. The company I purchased the domain through, and host some website with, allowed me to create a zone file pointing to the ip address, and in a few minutes, the name points to the web server! No need for 3rd party anything. Now, hopefully my IP address will continue to stay the same as it has the past three years.....
 
So, just an update, this ended up being a very simple process. The company I purchased the domain through, and host some website with, allowed me to create a zone file pointing to the ip address, and in a few minutes, the name points to the web server! No need for 3rd party anything. Now, hopefully my IP address will continue to stay the same as it has the past three years.....
Good deal. You chose a good registrar. There are a lot of crappy ones that lock down their DNS and try to use that to force you into buying their other 'services'.

Mind sharing who the registrar was (and I understand if you want to keep it private).
 
Good deal. You chose a good registrar. There are a lot of crappy ones that lock down their DNS and try to use that to force you into buying their other 'services'.

Mind sharing who the registrar was (and I understand if you want to keep it private).

I have no problem sharing the registrar, kinda like to promote companies that provide good server. Namepal.com is the site.

Now, I've run into a slightly different problem. Not sure if it's the DNS entry or the Apache config file. The issue is, to access the site, I have to use the full URL: "https://www.mydomain.com" If I leave off the https://, can't access the site. Can't access the site if I leave off the "www." either.

Just in case anyone wants to look at this, in my httpd.conf file, I have the server set to listen only on port 443, and I have the server name set as www.mydomain.com:443
My DNS zone file has the host as www.mydomain.com, origin is mydomain.com. I'm not sure if the host should just be "www" instead of the full name.

I'll be doing some more experimenting and research, it isn't a big deal right now, but something I'd like to figure out why.
 
https is independent of DNS.

You made the record www.mydomain.com point at your house.
If you don't want to use www, you have to make a record for mydomain.com point at your house.

Your ISP may also block port 80, most do.



I have no problem sharing the registrar, kinda like to promote companies that provide good server. Namepal.com is the site.

Now, I've run into a slightly different problem. Not sure if it's the DNS entry or the Apache config file. The issue is, to access the site, I have to use the full URL: "https://www.mydomain.com" If I leave off the https://, can't access the site. Can't access the site if I leave off the "www." either.

Just in case anyone wants to look at this, in my httpd.conf file, I have the server set to listen only on port 443, and I have the server name set as www.mydomain.com:443
My DNS zone file has the host as www.mydomain.com, origin is mydomain.com. I'm not sure if the host should just be "www" instead of the full name.

I'll be doing some more experimenting and research, it isn't a big deal right now, but something I'd like to figure out why.
 
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