I promised an article to address the dynamic DNS issue for external access to my home network. Sadly, most of the solutions involve an amount of work and configuration that was way too much to handle. My preferred solution would have been a combination of PowerDNS (SQL backend) and some updating via REST, together with my current domain hoster, domainfactory, where all xxx.dyndns.tld requests would be forwarded to PowerDNS.
Since this setup is way too complex for my small setup, I setteled for following solution:
- router updates no-ip.com address
- domainfactory has CNAME entry, pointing to no-ip.com Address
Pros:
- simple setup, no additional components need to be installed/configured
- unlimited (sub) domains, pointing to just one no-ip.com address, simple config
- since the CNAME target does not change, I don’t need to keep an eye on the TTL, but can rely on the TTL no-ip.com uses
Cons:
- less flexible than a SQL-based solution
- no-ip.com needs to be verified every month or it will be deactivated
- there’s no way to mask the service behind the CNAME
All in all, the compromise with a dyndns service is a bearable one. Also There’s the possibility to use SSL certificates with LetsEncrypt for the specific dyndns domains and also refresh them easily. The alternative is a partial custom solution: Use a provider like e.g. inwx.de that offers an integrated DynDNS service for domains hosted there, which I will try in the future.