Newbie needs help with domain-names and dynamic IP address
Hello,
I have been a programmer/analyst for a number of years.
I have done a number of years worth of web programming on the job.
Recently at home, I have been experimenting with a Tomcat web-server on my Windows XP PC. I would like to be able to let my friends access my website that is being managed by Tomcat.
I know a little about domain name registration. But my concerns/questions relate to associating a domain-name with a dynamic IP address. I have spent some time searching the web for information on this topic and I have found information which falls into several categories :
(1) software which can be used to associate a dymanic IP address with a domain name (i.e. You must register the new domain name on your own).
(2) services which will register a domain for you and provide service to associate your new domain name with a dynamic ip address
My question is : which method should I use and could you recommend the names of some companies/websites that fall into the category I should be using ?
Thanks for any help you can give a newbie.
Barry Kimelman
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
JeevesBond posted this at 11:47 — 18th April 2005.
He has: 3,956 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
Personally I've no experience of this type of software, it's a lot easier to just rent a static IP address.
I don't know about Canada but they're about £5 per month in the uk, for the money you save getting some software to associate with a dynamic IP you'll spend a lot more in time messing about, trying to find a solution.
Also: It usually takes 24 hours for DNS changes to propagate through the various DNS servers around the world, so when your IP changes and the software (whatever that may be) amends the record associated with your domain you may be facing a 24 hour wait before your web site becomes available again.
So this doesn't answer the question, but hopefully it'll help!
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chrishirst posted this at 12:36 — 18th April 2005.
He has: 379 posts
Joined: Apr 2005
I use dyndns to run my testing/demo server on. in the 3 years I've run this there has not been any problems with dns propogation. If I setup a new hostname it's live and available within a few minutes, and yes, I have checked this from various traceroute servers around the world. The difference is the way these services set up their DNS servers so requests always go back to the authoratitve server instead of relying on cached data.
There is a update program that runs as a service and communicates with the DNS server when the IP changes.
Chris
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andy206uk posted this at 15:27 — 18th April 2005.
He has: 1,758 posts
Joined: Jul 2002
Best solution is to contact your ISP and get them to assign you a static IP. You might have to pay a few quid but it's worth it in my opinion.
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