How to setup free dynamic DNS for remote access to your PC

Posted on May 19, 2008 at 5:19 am

What is Dynamic DNS you might be asking? Basically, dynamic DNS is a service provided by third-party providers in which a clients’ constantly changing IP address is kept track of and DNS servers are updated with the new IP address automatically. If you have a broadband Internet connection, you more than likely have a dynamic IP address.

A dynamic IP address is one that changes every so often, as compared to a static IP address, which never changes. Normally, a changing IP address does not cause any significant problem until you try to connect to your home computer from outside of your home network. With a constantly changing IP address, you will never be able to find your computer on the Internet.

So why would you want to find your computer on the Internet in the first place? Well there are several reasons why it’s good to know your IP address:

1. Connect to your computer via Remote Desktop Connection and access your files

2. Stream audio and video from your home media server to any location in the world

3. Setup your own FTP server or web server on your home PC

There are many more reasons why it could be useful to know your IP address. So why doesn’t everyone have a static IP address? Well, it’s basically a lot cheaper for Internet service providers to keep rotating IP addresses to their clients. If you want a static IP address, you will have to pay an extra monthly charge.

Dynamic DNS

That’s where dynamic DNS comes into play. Using this service, you can theoretically create a static IP address for your home computer. Here’s how it works. When you visit any web site on the Internet, you can either type in the IP address or you can enter in the domain name, like Online-Tech-Tips.com. There are DNS servers all over the world that keep track of which names correspond to which numeric IP addresses.

When you come to Online-Tech-Tips.com, your Windows computer first looks up the IP address from a DNS server and then requests the site. This is great for servers that have static IP addresses that never change, but it’s not well-suited for servers that are on home broadband connections. This means that your server is constantly “moving” on the Internet and it messes up the one-to-one relationship between domain names and IP addresses.

The solution to setup dynamic DNS, whereby your server keeps track of what its current IP address is, and notifies the DNS provider whenever it changes. In this way, you can give your home computer or server a virtual static IP address. When connecting to your computer, you would either type in the domain name or you would ping the domain name to find the current IP address.

dynamic dns server
Image Source: Ars Technica

Here’s a quick overview of how dynamic DNS service works in a real example. The dynamic DNS client can be considered your home PC or server and the SOHO Firewall/NAT appliance is your cable modem or router.

How to setup Dynamic DNS

dynamic dns

The cool thing is that there are free dynamic DNS services that you can use to set all of this up. My favorite by far is DynDNS, a free service which allows you to create a hostname that points to your dynamic IP or static IP address or URL.

Step 1: Create an account with DynDNS and then login with your username and password once you receive the authentication email.

Step 2: On the Account Services page, click on Add Host Services and then Add Dynamic DNS Host.

Step 3: You’ll get to pick from about 88 domain names, including blogdns.com, gotdns.com, is-a-geek.com, and more. Pick a domain name and then come up with a sub-domain, so you have a unique domain name like aseem.blogdns.com or akishore.is-a-geek.com. You will use this hostname to access your server or home computer. Leave the IP address field blank.

dyndns

Step 4: Download the DynDNS client tool onto your computer or server. This piece of software is what will automatically check to see if your computer has a new IP address and if so, will notify the DNS servers of the new IP address. Always keep it running in the background and you’ll always be able to access your computer.

How this helps you to setup remote desktop even if you have a dynamic IP address or setup an FTP server or Web server. Enjoy!

[tags]dynamic dns, dynamic dns service, free dynamic dns, dynamic dns services, ddns, free ddns, dynamic ip dns[/tags]

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Comments

15 Responses to “How to setup free dynamic DNS for remote access to your PC”

  1. oktay said on : June 28th, 2008 at 1:54 am

    thak youu …. ;) ;)


  2. Joel Galindo said on : August 19th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    Me ayudó mucho la explicación. Gracias.


  3. Jorge said on : August 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

    I ´m going to set up a adls internet connection in a remote house to be equiped with its own HomeGty/Router. Since I will want to access into the router remotely (to support people in the house) how can I use this feature to do it? any other way to do it without having a static IP in the router?

    Rgds JA


  4. L said on : November 5th, 2008 at 7:58 am

    many many thanks

    spot on


  5. remote access software said on : July 23rd, 2009 at 10:38 am

    Thanks for posting! I generally have no problem connecting, but sometimes the dynamic IP gets me. This should help.


  6. Hunter said on : November 30th, 2009 at 9:55 pm

    Thanks so much for this great post. Also, another thanks for your links at the end. I appreciate you having it in sequential order. Thanks for spreading the knowledge.


  7. azizrahman said on : December 22nd, 2009 at 12:41 pm

    hey aseem ur gr8, i have searched whole web for this, as i have a dynamic address, which never let me to connect with my home pc…with this im get connected securely easily..

    thanx once again…


  8. Alen said on : February 10th, 2010 at 8:09 am

    Thanks for this awesome article. So basically, you have to setup Dynamic DNS, then configure your router, then install VNC software on your computer correct?


  9. Ben said on : February 16th, 2010 at 11:27 am

    Does your router have to support a Dynamic DNS service in order for it to work? Which port do I have to open up?


  10. Syahid said on : March 5th, 2010 at 10:23 pm

    Thanks for this info, it is really useful. I also have a dynamic IP address and didn’t know there was a way to set it up so that I can always connect using the domain name! Really cool!

    What ports do I have to open on the router to allow remote access?


  11. sonia said on : April 3rd, 2010 at 4:52 am

    I setup Dynamic DNS, but I’m not sure what to do now? Do I need to open some port to access my computer at home? Why is this so hard!


  12. javi said on : May 9th, 2010 at 11:19 am

    Thanks your post has better (or simpler) instructions than dyndns.com. I have been using UltraVNC to view my home desktop, and security camera over my android phone (N1) using androidVNC, but having a dynamic IP I would have to visit http://www.whatismyip.com every time my computer restated and write down the new IP address or I would not be able to connect to my PC. This has saved me 5 minutes a day, and many headaches. The only complaint I have is the resolution of the desktop/camera is lowered when going through the sub-domain setup on dyndns.com but this can be fixed by looking up the new IP address on my account on dyndns.com and doing a direct connect from my VNC viewer.


  13. hussain said on : June 29th, 2010 at 3:03 pm

    Thanks what a great article. DYNDNS is pretty neat.


  14. dokma said on : November 9th, 2010 at 2:54 am

    There is a simple solution for Linux using PowerDNS and MySQL as a backend with a few BASH and PHP scripts. Takes just a few minutes to setup on Debian. You can get the source code here: http://www.docplanet.org/dns/implementing-dynamic-dns-for-powerdns/


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  1. How to tunnel VNC over SSH Says:

    [...] free dynamic DNS account, unless you have a static IP already. You can read my earlier post here on how to setup dynamic DNS. This will allow you to use a unique domain name like myname.homeip.net, [...]

    April 28th, 2009 at 5:38 am
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