Dynamic DNS

2024-12-08

I have been on Sonic for some time now. In one of their annual satisfaction surveys, I indicated to them that I would really like a static ip address. Their response (I was shocked they did) was that it's a frequently requested feature, but it's unlikely that they will implement it. I suppose they have their reasons.. In any case, the response also said that there are many ways to get around it and I should probably look into some kind of dynamic DNS update system. I felt a little silly, because no system I had looked into (very briefly) actually came close to being good enough and (relatively) cheap.. It turns out, they were right. I didn't look close enough. I will attempt to keep this updated with what I use now, and what seems like relatively low effort.

• I use (and pay for) a remote shell service on sdf. I have had this for years, but never really paid attention to it. They offer a mdns service, which is good enough. I recommend it - plus you get a remote shell.
• I discovered duckdns.org which is great as well.

I use both of these and so far, they seem to be working well. I used to pay to host this blog at my registrar nearlyfreespeech. They'd charge me about $0.30 a month for hosting the blog... but now, I do it myself. They too offer an API key and some well trodden mdns scripts to update your records. I felt that was a little too risky - I instead chose to use a CNAME. Let's see how long this holds up!