Forum OpenACS Q&A: Running OpenACS with DHCP, dynamic IP

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1: Running OpenACS with DHCP, dynamic IP
Posted by Tim Holzmann on 09/27/01 10:24 PM
I want to run OpenACS on a Linux 6.2 server, I'm connected via DSL,
so I have a dynamic IP, and use DHCP, the hostname is assigned during
bootup to 'mawi168-114.dsl.tds.net' and I'm assigned an IP, I want to
be able to change the hostname to my desired
hostname 'www.server1.com' and assigned to the given IP. If I
hardcode my hostname 'www.server1.com' in nsd.tcl 'set hostname', it
doesn't work, neither does it work to change the file /etc/HOSTNAME.
I have not registered 'www.server1.com' with the dynamic IP services,
that would map my URL to my dynamic IP, should this be setup first?
Any suggestions?
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2: Response to Running OpenACS with DHCP, dynamic IP (response to 1)
Posted by Jonathan Ellis on 09/27/01 10:30 PM
Some things you can do, in order of increasing difficulty:
  • Get a real ISP. It might not be much more expensive to find one that gives you a static IP. I live in USWest territory; they'll give me a dynamic IP for $18 a month. csolutions.net gives me a static IP for $19 a month.
  • sign up with someone like dhs.org OR
  • run your own DNS server and sign up with someone like secondary.com
If you pick one of the latter options, I believe that with the DHCP protocol you're supposed to get the first chance to renew your IP when your lease expires. So if your server is always up your IP should change seldom if ever.
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3: Response to Running OpenACS with DHCP, dynamic IP (response to 1)
Posted by Sam Snow on 09/27/01 11:43 PM
Here is how I do it--

My ip is dynamic, but since not many people are on the iDSL service with my provider, and they never reboot things on there end, my ip has never changed during the almost a year I have had the service.

My domain name is registered with yahoo domains, who provide you with both a primary and secondary DNS service-- and a nice web interface to change things. They charge $35 a year, but I don't have to worry about those two items-- and I have total control to change things and add subdomains at will.

For the DNS I set www.foo.com to point to my internet IP address and then I set up ip forwarding in my iDSL router to send all port 80 requests to my server's internal IP. In my nsd.tcl file I've got
set hostname    www.foo.com
set address    Internal server IP address

It works for me :). To clear up one item you may be wondering about, you can have multiple names (www.foo.com, www.foo2.com) pointing to one IP address. For your example, one of the names would be your 'www.server1.com' and the other is hostname assigned by your isp.

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4: Response to Running OpenACS with DHCP, dynamic IP (response to 1)
Posted by Sam Anderegg on 09/28/01 01:13 PM
You might also check out the following Dynamic DNS providers. I am using both of them although I might cancel the more expensive one.
  • www.dyndns.com with an annual fee of 50$ per domain, or
  • www.dyndns.org with an initial activation fee (donation) of 30$ per domain and no further annual fees. Notice that dyndns.org gives you much more service and customization of your DNS entry. For instance, they allow you to change your domain from foo.org to bar.org without additional costs.
Google also points me to the following overview of dynamic DNS providers: http://www.thedirectory.org/diamond/teldns.htm