Im sure this has been asked before i juat can’t find where it has been - Maybe need to work on how to search Lemmy better. But…
Id like to eventually self host some sevices that require external access. While I have IpV6 addresses my IPV4 is dynamic.
Whats the best free way to be able to point some domains/ subdomains I have to my external dynamic IP and keep it updated. Im running OpenWrt on my router. - So possibly should be posting there.
Free Dyndns services seem to be a bit crap. Do I need to pay for a VPS? (seems to defeat the point of self hosting)
I use afraid.org to keep my dynamic dns pointed at my routers ip. With afraid.org dns you only need a curl statement scheduled on the opendnswrt router to keep the dynamic ip updated.
Afraid.org gives you subdomains on other people’s domains, who can decide to stop letting you use them at any moment.
I was assuming that you don’t own a domain. If you do why would you use Afraid? There are lots of reliable DNS services to choose from and you can have interface and features that aren’t frozen in 1995.
Self hosting doesn’t mean you should host everything yourself at home, using a VPS you manage (so the data inside it is still yours) is also a viable option for selfhosting. I myself host some services at home and a few others in a VPS.
As for Dyndns, I’ve used a few providers over the years. DuckDNS is the one I’ve been using for 5 years or so and it’s not failed me once. Pretty happy with it.
Maybe you could have a duckdns pointing to your dynamic IP and your domains / subdomains with a CNAME pointing to the dyndns address?
Since you run already OpenWrt, you can check out https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/services/ddns/client
There is a list on this page of compatible services. If you don’t want to use one more service (DNS), you can use a domain registrar with an API (like porkbun) and find online tools that work with that.
Be aware of the risks of hosting your websites publicly from home, make sure to run them in very isolated environments. Having your VPS compromised is bad, but having your home network compromised is much worse!
That lists afraid.org as a ddns provider.
They are pretty great, I use them as my domain host.
Yes I use no-ip but have to confirm the domain name every month or so and cant use my own domain on the free tier. (Maybe im just being cheap) - Also I haven’t been able to figure out how I would use / get SSL certificates.
Yes, I have used it in the past and it was annoying…
You can get SSL certs with letsencrypt, but you need to use the http verification method.
ddclient paired with a supported provider.
Many DNS providers have an API and are supported by various dynamicDNS clients. I use Cloudflare and the built in client on my Opnsense router.
OpenWRT should have a client too that supports a bunch of services.
