Dynamic DNS

[atomicspark]

Since I know you all are a bunch of witty folk, I was wondering if you could help me with something. I currently have dynamic domain name set up at home with DDNS. Which dynamic DNS service do you guys use and what are its benefits?

Basically, I want to have a subdomain on my website pointing towards my dynamic IP. I'm guessing I'll just set up my subdomain to point towards my DDNS domain name. Seems kind of silly but as far as I know that would be the only way to do it.

This way I don't have some dumb forced domain name for my dynamic dns and I could possibly have the servers listed as such: server1.atomicsparkonline.net, server2.atomicsparkonline.net, etc. All subdomains will point to another public IP:Port.

SubDomain Redirection
server1.atomicsparkonline.net is currently being redirected to http://66.43.207.66:27015/

I set up a test for my static, current server. Does that look correct? It told me to "be sure to end with a trailing / on the end of the url." Silly trailing slash rules.

[JamminR]

Here's the challenge... it seems the DDNS service you are using will only attempt to redirect HTTP requests.
If I type in my browser server1.atomicsparksonline.net, it attempts to connect me to the IP address you have listed there. 66.43.207.66, which times out/fails because web browser's don't 'speak' Steam protocol.

However, if I do a name server lookup on server1.atomicsparksonline.net .. it returns a totally different ip address, the one of the name server.
Perhaps it might work, but, I'm not sure it would if using steam. I'll try here in a few.

Code: [Select]

>nslookup server1.atomicsparkonline.net
Server:  EyeSpyNets
Address:  192.168.1.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    server1.atomicsparkonline.net
Address:  67.15.250.6
A reverse lookup of that IP address shows the DDNS server, I think.

Code: [Select]

>nslookup 67.15.250.6
Server:  EyeSpyNet
Address:  192.168.1.1

Name:    ns1.siteground133.com
Address:  67.15.250.6


[JamminR]

Nope.
Didn't think so.

Code: [Select]

] connect server1.atomicsparkonline.net
Connecting to server1.atomicsparkonline.net...
Retrying server1.atomicsparkonline.net...
Retrying server1.atomicsparkonline.net...
Retrying server1.atomicsparkonline.net...
Connection failed after 4 retries.

Adding server1.atomicsparkonline.net:27015 to my Favorites manually gets 'no response' attempting to talk to IP 67.15.250.6, the redirect name server of your DDNS (I think).
You'd need to find a DDNS service that won't just redirect html requests, but, allow you to redirect all traffic to the ip you have.

[atomicspark]

I didn't go through DDNS for the test. I just added server1 to my subdomains (server1.atomicsparkonline.net) and changed the redirect to to the ip:port of my game server. I figured that it might not work since it had http:// in the redirect url. I'm going to send a support ticket to siteground and they can tell me if this is possible.

Huh, when I went back to remove the trailing slash (to see if that would fix it) I was able to remove the http: protocol. So now it reads,

SubDomain Redirection
server1.atomicsparkonline.net is currently being redirected to 66.43.207.66:27015/

[JamminR]

If they don't force http:// in front of your redirect, might try steam://connect/server1.atomicsparkonline.net:27015/
However, that might still only work in browsers.

[JamminR]

atomic, its still not gonna work.

Code: [Select]

>nslookup server1.atomicsparkonline.net 67.15.250.6
Server:  ns1.siteground133.com
Address:  67.15.250.6

Name:    server1.atomicsparkonline.net
Address:  67.15.250.6

Only way it would work is if name servers returned YOUR ip address on that lookup, not thier name server.
I use no-ip.com. I don't get to create any blah.com address I want, but can create any blah.<large_selection_they_offer_here>.com
If I lookup jamminr.no-ip.com .. it resolves to whatever external ip I have at the moment, not thier server ip like your DDNS seems to do.
I have no idea if they allow multiple <blah>.<one_you_chose_from_thier_list_here>.com addresses, or what charge they would be.
(I know I get one free)
I've not logged into that site directly for over two or three years, so can't log in to see what I have.

[atomicspark]

Ah I see. So it's just a glorified redirection. I'll wait for my support response and go from there. I removed it for now.

[JamminR]

www.no-ip.com
They have several various options. Some free. Some cost.
Here's what I have for the free stuff.
http://www.no-ip.com/services/managed_dns/free_dynamic_dns.html
Like mentioned though, free, you wouldn't get to use atomicsparkonline.net
atomicsparkonline1.<list_they_provide,shorter_for_free>.<something> would work.

When I first joined a few years ago, I couldn't have more than one.
I now see that I can have up to 5 subdomains with different IPs.
They have 5 options for redirect (Web like yours does now, A record (like I have now), and a few others)

Might be worth at least looking at.

[Megiddo]

Check out http://freedns.afraid.org/

I've used them a lot in the past, give you pretty much complete control over the domain and it's all free!

Bad part is it won't automatically update but oh well.

[atomicspark]

Ugh I got a response back and they said put a meta refresh in the index.html of the subdomian folder. Idiots. I'll checkout the others you mentioned tho. I'm afraid I can't have a subdomain goto another IP without having an HTML page in the middle. It probably isn't worth it to try to get URL links to my servers. Oh well.