This post is part of the short series on using Using No-IP For External Access With a Dynamics IP Address.
No-IP is a service which has been around for quite a long time now (I remember using a competitor of theirs back in 2004 (and possibly earlier) to use an external DNS entry to access a web server I was running at home on a dynamic IP address (my ISP at the time didn’t offer static IP addresses and I didn’t sign up for one wit my current provider).
No-IP as a company have several offerings, but the one I am looking at in this series is the Free Dynamic DNS offering which allows for 3 hostnames on a limited set of domains and requires you to confirm the DNS every 30 days. There are two paid offering with more hostnames, domains and which do not expire, but I only need one hostname so the free option is sufficient and I don’t mind clicking a link on an email to renew every 30 days.
As well as my use case of remotely accessing a NAS or computer, No-IP can allow you to access any Internet enabled device on your home network even when you have a dynamic IP address (if you have a static IP then you could connect just using the IP address, although using a hostname is easier to remember); there may be configuration required on your router to forward ports to the devices on your network.
I’ve also had my dad sign up and install No-IP so I can easily access his system remotely to help out with any problems he is having.
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