Running a Home Server with Dynamic DNS in your RouterPosted by Andy Atkinson on December 18, 2005 | Post type: Gain Dynamic DNS is a service that lets you create a domain name that will map to your dynamic IP address so that you can run a home server without having a static IP address. Static IP addresses are typically not provided to residential broadband customers and sometimes ISPs charge a hefty price for one. Until recently, if you ran a Dynamic DNS service like this, you would need to install a client that would constantly monitor your external "routable" address, then update the Dynamic DNS servers so that the same domain could always find your server. The new development here is that many new routers, wired and wireless, will run the Dynamic DNS client software on the router itself. This means you can put your Dynamic DNS account information into the router and you do not have to worry about installing and configuring any software on your server. This quick tip will show you how to get DynDNS configured to run a simple web server with the Linksys WRT54G wireless router.
The Linksys WRT54G wireless router lets me run a dynamic IP address service from either DynDNS or TZO. I setup an account at DynDNS rather quickly, signed into my account and put my dynamic IP address in from Comcast using the "Dynamic DNS" service found at the website above.
The next step is to configure your router. You can run a number of services from your home machine, depending on what your needs are. For the time being, I am running a simple web server, on port 8080, but you can run many services on many different port numbers and access them all with your DynDNS domain name. The first thing you will want to do is put your account information in from DynDNS. On this Linksys router these settings can be found under Setup > DDNS. If your router supports DynDNS or another service provider, the steps below should work in the same way.
Now we will have to make sure our firewalls are configured properly. There is a firewall on your router and there should also be a firewall on your server. At a minimum there should be the Windows XP firewall that comes with Service Pack 2 if you are running Windows XP like I am. Depending on which services you want to run on your server, you will need to open up the appropriate ports. On the Linksys router, these settings can be found under Applications & Gaming > Port Range Forward. You can see in the screenshot below that I have configured the "WWW" service to run on port 8080, which is my web server. If I want to add additional services, I can define additional ports to forward to the same server. On the right side, I put in the private IP address of my server, in this case it is
Finally, we want to configure the software firewall on our server. If you are using the Windows XP firewall, you can right-click your ethernet card and choose properties. Under the "Advanced" tab you will find the Windows Firewall button you can click to configure ports. Your web server port may already be configured, otherwise like in the screenshot below, you can add the same port that you have configured on your router as an "exception" to the software firewall. If you are using a different software firewall the process should be similar.
In this quick tip, I showed you how to setup DynDNS so that you can run a server from your home behind a dynamic IP address. Using a service that keeps track of your public, routable IP address like Dynamic DNS from DynDNS, we can run a simple server without paying for a static IP address or business class connection to the Internet. If you are in an apartment building that is running network address translation (NAT), you will have a private IP address (RFC 19168) and will likely not be able to run a server since you will not have access to the firewall. Once you are ready to run a production web server, you will likely outgrow your DynDNS domain name and want to consider a more advanced solution than the one presented here. This guide should help you setup a test server, but is not intended to provide a solution for a business-critical website or service. Also keep in mind that running a home server may violate the acceptable user policy (AUP) you have with your Internet service provider. About the author(s) Andy started Pain in the Tech in 2005 as a way to share tips and tutorials with friends and family, and evangelize great products and services. By 2008, Pain in the Tech had 7 contributors, thousands of daily page views. Site ownership was transitioned to Matt Thommes in 2008. Comments
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