DynDNS Cuts Back Free DNS Options

First time accepted submitter LazyBoyWrangler writes "Just noticed the 'free' non-commercial service from DynDNS has been deprecated. Not my place to argue with their business model changes, but the home router infrastructure out there has been built around the promise of free dynamic DNS service. Most manufacturers offer DynDNS as their only option. Removing the free service for non-commercial folks seems disingenuous when they are the only option for many users." According to the linked page, the free service is being drastically cut back for new users (one free hostname, rather than five, and from a shorter list of branded domains), but not ended entirely. Existing users, it says, will see no changes "as long as you keep your hostnames active and up-to-date. If you allow your account or hostnames to expire, you will have to select from the new domains instead and will be limited to the one free hostname."

Comments

Doesn't matter

[Foxhoundz]

I've been using this site for a while now and I must say I like it.

Re:Doesn't matter

[schnikies79]

It does matter when 99% of routers only have dyndns as an option.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

It does matter when 99% of routers only have dyndns as an option.

we are the 99%

Re:Doesn't matter

[DaveWick79]

It's not like updating via a router is the only choice. If you are hosting something on that IP you are going to have at least one box that can run a software client to update.

Also the vast majority of non-commercial users don't need multiple sites on one account - and they don't need a huge selection of dozens of host domains. DynDns is simplifying their free service without affecting the needs of 99.9% of new users. And if you need more sites it is not that hard to setup a free email account to link it to.

So the bottom line is, this is a non-story.

Re:Doesn't matter

[skids]

Currently using that and these other two. But then I only ever wanted secondary service, if possible with NOTIFY support. Someday I'll mail in some cash to these fine folks, as I did with everydns before it got eaten by dyndns.

Re:Doesn't matter

[ciaohound]

Occupy deprecated.

Re:Doesn't matter

[msobkow]

Nonsense. You always have the option of paying your ISP for a static IP address and registering a normal DNS entry.

Re:Doesn't matter

[macraig]

Bullshit. The router doesn't HAVE TO do the updating. What are you, new here? Pick a different free service like afraid.org, run the updating service or background app on a PC connected to the router, and shut your whiny yapper.

Stupid sky-is-falling nihilists.

Re:Doesn't matter

[kimvette]

occupy DNS?

Re:Doesn't matter

[jd]

Occupy X.500, it has a classier name and more features.

Re:Doesn't matter

[adolf]

I used to use afraid.org, but switched to something else when their domains inexplicably weren't resolving for a long time ago for what seemed to last a week or two.

Much more recently, I just buy my own domains for the pittance that it costs per year, pick a free DNS provider (Zone Edit still works fine, for instance), and do the dynamic DNS thing that way. If I ever find that the DNS provider is down for some reason, I can fix it myself.

Re:Doesn't matter

[adolf]

It's not like updating via a router is the only choice. If you are hosting something on that IP you are going to have at least one box that can run a software client to update.

Not always. Think about a remote security DVR, or a remote (mostly) brainless NAS hard disk for backups, and you'll be on the right track: The fact that there is a network connection and some gear that needs a dynamic hostname does not also mean that there is also a PC capable of running arbitrary software.

Throwing a cheap router into the mix (which PPPOE users needed to have anyway) just plain fixed that, for a lot of folks, for a long time. This (actually rather old) announcement changes things somewhat.

This is important because some people might not have seen an email from DynDNS for a decade or more, and will be very surprised when their things stop working after all this time.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, what are you rambling about?

Re:Doesn't matter

[hairyfeet]

Then buy the service or run your own DNS why don't you? Geez, the economy is in the shitter, these guys are probably hurting just like everyone else and simply can't afford to keep giving the service away, yet listen to all the bitching. If the service is THAT useful to you? Then why don't you help them stay afloat! TNSTAAFL you know, would you rather they just went tits up? Service goes dark either way you know.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

i choose my router from openwrt list of supported hardware.

if you can't spend $100, sorry

Re:Doesn't matter

[mcavic]

Not always. Most ISP's don't advertise static IP's for residential service, and in many cases I bet you'd have a hard time getting someone on the phone who knows what a static IP is. Two cable techs who came out to my house recently weren't even familiar with ping. Only one of them recognized the value of it.

Re:Doesn't matter

[NJRoadfan]

...and thats why I have a DynDNS account even though my domain registrar offers dynamic DNS service for free on all my domains registered with them.

Re:Doesn't matter

[dargaud]

I've put the various PCs of family members on DynDNS a long time ago, so I can ssh into their boxes when they have a problem. So now that they are cutting back, I'm being forced to shell money. It's a useful service, I just hope it's not more than a $ or so a month. I'm just sad to see all the free internet of the 90s disapear little by little.

Re:Doesn't matter

[ultranova]

Geez, the economy is in the shitter, these guys are probably hurting just like everyone else and simply can't afford to keep giving the service away, yet listen to all the bitching.

The economy is in the shitter, so of course people complain about increasing expenses, since they can't afford them either.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Barefoot Monkey]

It does matter when 99% of routers only have dyndns as an option.

I very much doubt the 99% figure as I have never encountered or heard about such a router.

But that doesn't matter because the authoritative nameserver that you choose does not need to be the same as whatever people are using to make DNS queries for them to find your site.

Re:Doesn't matter

[makomk]

Then buy the service or run your own DNS why don't you?

I tried this actually. If you run your own dynamic DNS service most consumer routers won't update it - they're hardcoded to only support DynDNS. That's why this is such a big deal. Because the free DynDNS option was "good enough" for so long nearly all hardware manufacturers didn't bother to support anything else.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

I can vouch for this, the ISP which I use, and which is the only available ISP unless I want to use a slow and unreliable mobile data service, will not sell you a fixed IP for their residential service - you get five dynamic IPs on ADSL, but if you want a fixed IP, you have to get a business account. Which costs a good bit more, and indeed the people selling residential service didn't even know what a fixed IP is (they thought it's "some obsolete thing nobody uses").

Re:Doesn't matter

[aix tom]

Pretty much. Of course, since nearly all hardware manufacturers probably also didn't bother to support DnyDNS *financially* for the feature they used to sell their product, DynDNS probably got more and more workload from those freeloaders and couldn't afford to keep the free service up. It would have been pretty trivial to have a "configuratble http request to a configurable host" in the router to update pretty much all dynamic dns providers out there. But router manufacturers seem to have chosen to cheap-skate.

(Although for 99% of people out there the one host name per router should still be enough, the few who absolutely *Need* more are most likely to also be able to pay for the better service.)

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize you said that on /.?

Here, we are the 1%. Or (in my circle of friends) the 0.1%.

Re:Doesn't matter

[allo]

nope, just use ddclient. where is your problem, when you're hosting your services, the additional ddclient cannot be a real problem.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy fix. Just obtain any 6 letter domain name. Hex edit any existing firmwares and replace all instances of 'dyndns' with your 6 letters.

All firmwares fixed.

Re:Doesn't matter

[arth1]

Also, it doesn't help when you have failover between two services.
DynDNS takes care of that need.

Re:Doesn't matter

[arth1]

Then you introduce the problem with uptime requirements for that PC. You can't just shut it down or even reboot it, because it's now running an essential service.

One might argue that you can run the dynamic DNS client on the same server as provides the service you need reachable by dynamic DNS. But that's not always feasible either. coffeepot.dyndns.example or other X10 services, or an all-in-one NAS, for example.

Then there's the situation which I'm sure nobody here have encountered - having to help family remotely. When part of the problem is that they can't get their machine running, having a dynamic DNS client running on it may be asking too much of miss Fortuna. Being able to do things like remote pings help you diagnose what kind of trouble they have gotten themselves into this time.

So add a PC with uptime requirements and put it in their basement, along with UPSes? You pay for that?

Re:Doesn't matter

[arth1]

Not always. Think about a remote security DVR, or a remote (mostly) brainless NAS hard disk for backups, and you'll be on the right track: The fact that there is a network connection and some gear that needs a dynamic hostname does not also mean that there is also a PC capable of running arbitrary software.

Also X10. Turning on porch/driveway lights and turning up the heat remotely can be a cost saver for people who don't come home at the same time every day.
Plus, there's the extra geek point for coffeepot.dyndns.foo

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't let your existing account expire. Or get a new email address for each box. Then open a DynDns account for each box.

Re:Doesn't matter

[dargaud]

This is important because some people might not have seen an email from DynDNS for a decade or more, and will be very surprised when their things stop working after all this time.

Happened to me recently: I went on vacation for a few weeks and the home server croaked in the meanwhile. No ddclient update for a month -> end of dyndns service. Plenty of things didn't work when I got back for this very reason.

Re:Doesn't matter

[hairyfeet]

Let old hairy show ya what to do friend. You go to Craigslist, or your local Freecycle chapter if you have one, pick up any of the bazillion older boxes out there, keep an eye out for Celerons and Semprons as they are low power and both underclock quite nicely. Once that is completed go to your local mom & pop shop and ask about Ethernet cards. Since nearly all boxes today have Ethernet built in we usually have a drawer just full of Ethernet cards and we'll be happy to sell you some cheap. I personally am happy to let them go at $6 a pop and will even burn you a nice CD with the drivers along with some freeware if you'd like. Then you can either use the XP that came with it or one of the bazillion Linux router discs out there, if you want to get fancy pants you can pick up a $5 flash card and IDE to flash converter to cut down even further on heat and noise, but personally I'd leave the drive in it and use it as a downloader box as well..

Tada! you know how a router that is frankly insanely overpowered and will do anything you can dream up. DNS,BT, you can even use it to surf when the weather is nasty and you don't want to risk your main PCs. Depending on the board you'd be surprised how low you can underclock a Cele or Sempy and even at default clocks they can be pretty low powered. For years I had a 733MHz P3 I used for my "anything network related" box before finally giving it away when I got this 1.8GHz Sempron with a card reader. It makes a great DNS and downloader box, quiet as a churchmouse.

Or if you think that's too much trouble just cut DynDNS a check and call it a day. Personally I think one of the advantages of being a geek is we can make a PC into pretty much any damned thing we want and scavenging boxes and making cool stuff is a fun way to spend a Sunday IMHO. Hell I'm using my new EEE Netbook as a drum machine to lay down tracks with, just loaded Hydrogen along with making some cool patterns and tada! No having to kill ourselves worrying about finding a new drummer while the local college is off on holiday. By the time they get back we'll have most of the base tracks laid and can just hand one of the kids a CD and let them loose. Sure beats having to deal with an arrogant drummer whose timing depends on how many beers he's had up to that point, that's for sure.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

or simply just declare a different dns on the computers themselves rather than at the router level

Re:Doesn't matter

[Doctor O]

So what?

The point of DynDNS is being able to reach machines behind your router, so if they're online, they can run any dynamic DNS updating client they like, and even as a cronjob or scheduled thingamabob (however Windows might call them, I don't do Windows).

So, if you *have* machines running, *they* can update the IP, and if you *don't* have anything running, what's the point of dynamic DNS?

Re:Doesn't matter

[Intron]

My cable company only has dynamic IP for home. Minimum cost is $29.95/mo (5 Mbit down). The cheapest business internet with a static IP is $87.99/mo.(20 Mbit down, 3 Mbit up).

Re:Doesn't matter

[Almost-Retired]

It is not a non-story as you seem to imply. I too got caught with the change (but it was several months ago), having one name registered there. It died through no action on the monthly update update because I am now on a cable modem & the ip is assigned to the modem, never changes. dd-wrt didn't do the auto-update because it hadn't changed, so it expired. So now I've had to register again, but with a much longer hostname now that advertizes that its a free dyndns account. The did it with dd-wrt for me when combined with brainslayers refusal to reply to any messages sent regarding a registered dd-wrt install, so I went out and bought another router (another story all by itself, it was 5 each, 60 mile trips to where I could look at routers & read specs before I actually got one that could be configured to work) and this one is hard coded for dyndns.

I suspect that part of the foot dragging on the part of cisco/linksys/netgear is related to the protocols that other such providers use to maintain active accounts, and tracking them all would quickly make them use a bigger eprom, which in addition to having to write the code, a one time cost, but raises the hardware costs by 13 cents a unit, something the numbskull MBA's just won't accept.

I did run without a dns name for a while, which worked fine AFAIWC, but my sent email got filtered to the spam folder at a lot of the recipients sites because of the ip address contained in the sig where the name should have been. Damned if I do, and damned if I didn't. Since my site serves as a backup repo of a lot of software for a 25 year old computer, if it goes dark, that is just one more nail in the lid of that old & greatly loved machine.

Yeah, it is a story, and a PIMA too.

Cheers, Gene

Re:Doesn't matter

[Nimey]

Dyndns's subscription cost, while it isn't epsilon, certainly is delta. A one-year subscription is $20, or you could do monthly for $2.

$20. If you really need the service, you could practically find that in the couch cushions over the course of a year.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Almost-Retired]

99% seems like a reasonable SWAG to me based on recent experience. I just went through 4 routers that were either defective out of the box, or not configurable enough to handle my little 4 or 5 machine home network, finally finding a Netgear WNR3500 that worked, including the radio. My new Nook Color needed a passphrase entry for WPA-2, and it Just Worked(TM) This included some $250 Cisco units that didn't work, or worked like a 2400 baud dialup modem for achieved speeds.

Every damned one of them is hard coded to DynDns. So they now have a liplock monopoly on the market. And they know it.

Cheers, Gene

Re:Doesn't matter

[AliasMarlowe]

Dyndns's subscription cost, while it isn't epsilon, certainly is delta. A one-year subscription is $20, or you could do monthly for $2.

They appear to have increased their prices, but are still pretty cheap. I bought 1 year for $15, and a few months ago I renewed for another 2 years for $30 (expires 2013). Apparently, it's now $20 per year or $40 for 2 years.

BTW, my router only supports a couple of dynamic DNS services (including dyndns.com). However, my two Synology boxes - both of which are capable of being DHCP servers - have support for a much longer list of dynamic DNS services: freedns.org Zoneedit.com DNSPod.com ChangeIP.com dynamic DO!.jp selfHOST.de 3322.org able.or.kr No-IP.com Two-DNS.de DYNDNS.org

Re:Doesn't matter

[pr0f3550r]

You can replace that router with ClearOS, ClearCenter offers free Dynamic DNS with their free account registration.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Nimey]

If you've installed Tomato Firmware into your router you get an even larger pool of dyndns services to choose from.

Re:Doesn't matter

[CmdrPorno]

The no-ip.com client has worked well for me for remote access purposes (haven't tried it for hosting), and the premium service is reasonably priced (about $10-15 per year).

Re:Doesn't matter

[Fnord666]

...scheduled thingamabob (however Windows might call them, I don't do Windows).

It's called, oddly enough, Windows Scheduler. Hopefully the client is actually installed as a service with a configurable sleep time between checks and doesn't need to be run periodically. Similarly on *NIX I would hope it would run as a daemon rather than needing to be run via cron.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Doctor O]

Um, no. Why would you want to have something sleeping around the system that has to do a one-time action once in a while? I don't know for Windows, but a dyndns updater is a classic example of something *not* to be run as a daemon.

Re:Doesn't matter

[AliasMarlowe]

If you've installed Tomato Firmware into your router you get an even larger pool of dyndns services to choose from.

Alas, my router is not among those supported by Tomato or OpenWRT or anything other than its proprietary firmware. I did investigate these options, of course.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is a real domain name is cheaper in most cases.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Using your router as the dynamic dns client isnt your only option. While I can see why its preferred to running an update client on a PC, its not the end of the world. No-ip offers a free update client, as im sure others do as well.
Of course, I'm assuming the 99% joke wasn't the sole point of your post, if it was you can ignore my post. :P

Re:Doesn't matter

[crutchy]

I don't use dyndns (i use afraid.org) and i don't need any fancy router settings beyond port forwarding. most broadband addresses are pretty stable nowadays (especially since the pool has dried up, and because often people leave their routers on all the time so even if your address was reset the available address pool at the ISP is likely much smaller than it used to be such that you may get your old address again anyway). i haven't had an address change in nearly 10 years since first getting broadband, but if on the odd occasion it did change, I'd just update my afraid.org settings manually (2 minutes). anyone who requires availability beyond that shouldn't be hosting at home, and anyone trying to host on anything less than a stable broadband address is asking for trouble. when dialup was the only option (i guess in some cases it still may be) dyndns came to the rescue, but technology moves quickly and with broadband address stability, their niche (amateur/semi-professional hosting) has little need for their services. today's economic climate is tough, but people in tech should know that you can't come up with an idea and then sit on your lorels expecting the money to roll in indefinitely. if you can't keep innovating, you get left in the dust. i think this is one reason why offering things for free is becoming more appealing; if you don't make money from the start, you can't become dependent on it. instead, more people are preferring to stick to a more predictable income from a larger company. of course this apathy will ultimately kill capitalism (there can only be so many mergers before there is no longer any competition). When that happens we'll have to begin fending off zombies infected by the T-virus.

Re:Doesn't matter

[denbesten]

The ancient PC I was using for a firewall had a sticker rating of 720 watts. The Buffalo router that replaced it is rated at 24 watts and also allowed me to turn off my old WiFi access point. Although there is no question that both stickers overstate usage significantly, I have to believe the general notion that the router is significantly more power efficient and willl pay for itself simply in power-savings. DD-WRT is pretty good at adding back the "customizability".

Re:Doesn't matter

[an_orphan]

I don't get this at all. The router menu is only a convenience. It would stand up to reason to expect that if you have a use for dyndns, you have some sort of box behind your router that stays up continuously. With this in mind, it should be fairly simple to update any DNS provider's records with an api from that box behind your router. If they don't support that, then bitch at them. In the case that you're just accessing your router, not quite sure what the point would be.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you've sold the couch cushions back in 2009 already ;)

Re:Doesn't matter

[KingMotley]

Sorry, but 99% of the routers don't just support dyndns. Most routers I've used support more than just them, including the best selling routers.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Dr_Barnowl]

The *router* is running.

Couple that with Wake-on-LAN, and you can switch on any machine in your network that supports it. That includes my MythTV box and my desktop.

Why would I want to waste electricity running a full sized computer just on the off-chance I might want to access it?

Re:Doesn't matter

[Doctor O]

You could ask that same question about your router, unless your router is used by more people than just you.

I am with you, I usually don't run my machines when I'm away, and I'm all for being green. But I've never, never, never encountered somebody who actually DID use WOL and not just talk about it.

I fare quite well with Wake-By-Wife. When I need to access my desktop, I just call her or send an SMS that she should turn on the thing. ^^

OT: MythTV is kinda nice, BTW, but my EyeTV software on my iMac can just turn the computer on before a recording and turn it off afterwards, just because I scheduled a recording. I like that and wonder why no other software, MythTV included, does do this. It's not exactly rocket science either.

Re:Doesn't matter

[the_B0fh]

If you can't afford it then it's probably not something you need, but rather something you want.

In any case, why should they pay for what you are unable to pay for yourself?

Re:Doesn't matter

[Dr_Barnowl]

MythTV does have a shutdown / wakeup architecture, and is quite flexible in this regard.

MythTV can do a wake on RTC if your BIOS supports it, either via the older nvram-wakeup program or the newer ACPI Wakeup built into newer kernels. Or if your hardware supports neither of these things, and still supports WOL, you could use your router to do it ; configure your MythTV shutdown to add a command to your router cron tab to send a WOL packet at the appropriate time. If you are using a machine as a combined frontend / backend, the mythwelcome program provides a means of manually overriding power-up cycles that just happen to coincide with RTC powerups. Mine uses nvram-wakeup, it was configured quite a long time ago.

The EyeTV is displaying the advantage of a stable and constrained hardware platform though - like a console, you can be sure of certain features being present, and not have to worry about how to set them up.

The router is on all the time because I do routinely use it every day while away from home, even if it's just to tunnel some traffic.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Hsensei]

I've been loving this service. they let you use your own domain as well for free as long as you agree to let others make subdomains off it. They do give you a say in that as well to make sure its not something damaging. Also I think Open WRT supports it.

Yep

[bobstreo]

Already lost a domain name I had for I have no idea how many years because google marked the notification as junk so I never saw it.

I'm partly to blame for not logging in every other day to make sure my account didn't expire.

Re:Yep

[cyachallenge]

I would recommend using an auto updater such as the one recommended on the dyndns.org site. http://dyn.com/support/clients/

Re:Yep

[nedlohs]

Unlikely to help if you IP hardly ever changes...

Re:Yep

[IQgryn]

Ddclient will update every so often anyway, and I'd imagine most others do the same.

Re:Yep

[cyachallenge]

Actually, as long as you regularly update with the server it doesn' t matter. I used dyndns for quite a while years back.

Re:Yep

[nedlohs]

Which would be behaviour they explicitely list as abuse on the link above. But if they don't care about their own rules (or can't be bothered specifying them accurately) I guess it doesn't matter.

Re:Yep

[definate]

They don't specify what the frequency for abuse would be, but hourly would probably be a touch excessive, however daily wouldn't. I've used DynDNS and most clients update daily, or based on changes. Never had a problem.

Re:Yep

[nedlohs]

The text says updating when the IP hasn't changed is abuse. Sure, they don't actually mean that, but that's what they wrote.

Re:Yep

[DigiShaman]

Actually, it does matter a lot. Regardless if you have a static IP or not, you need the client to 'touch' your online account for you. Otherwise, it will expire unless you manually log into their website with your account. I'm not sure how often it's required, but don't let it pass more than a few weeks or you'll find your DynDNS account deleted.

Re:Yep

[mcavic]

I haven't read the instructions in a while, but updating every 20 or 25 days is not abuse to avoid a 30 day expiration.

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

Already lost a domain name I had for I have no idea how many years because google marked the notification as junk so I never saw it.

SAME. EXACT. THING. happened to me. The gmail account, for years, worked fine. All of a sudden one month, it marked a bunch of stuff spam that wasn't. Spam trap was catching everything. I'll bet anything this happened to us at the same time... and it really *was* google's fault for, without notice, rolling out some new spam algorithm, or a clever dyndns admin trick. I believe a lot of people lost their dyndns DN's this year, and not because someone scooped up the name. When we went to re-register because our accounts were deleted, we no longer had the same options, did we?

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this article is about DynDNS, but I've had problems with the notification emails from No-IP and DynDNS; sometimes the "Your redirect is expiring unless you..." message just never arrives, only the "Your redirect expired and was removed..." email shows up. This is over a score of accounts that I work with for clients, so it seems more like a trend than a glitch.

Re:Yep

[jamesh]

Already lost a domain name I had for I have no idea how many years because google marked the notification as junk so I never saw it.

I'm partly to blame for not logging in every other day to make sure my account didn't expire.

I guess it was worth less than $30/year to you then ;)

Re:Yep

[Gregg Alan]

Let's bring this site back under control of responsible adults. No one cares if the free service (note: SERVICE) you relied upon went belly up or just started hating you in particular. Like the parent I'm responding to, if the domain wasn't worth the going rate for you then you just couldn't justify having the domain.

"I'm partly to blame" my ass. You are entirely to blame. Grow up.

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

PROTIP: net-dns/ddclient
http://ddclient.sourceforge.net/

Problem? Solved!

Re:Yep

[hawkinspeter]

If it's business related, just pay for an account and charge your clients accordingly.

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: couldn't justify paying money for having the domain.

Re:Yep

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

What the hell are you talking about? Account terms, or pricing changes make it as articles on here all the time. Its a TECHNOLOGY site. I also felt frusterated that they changed their terms of service. They were a free site for like 13 years.

""I'm partly to blame" my ass. You are entirely to blame. Grow up."

But sounds like you just didnt have your coffee today, gramps!

Re:Yep

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm partly to blame for not logging in every other day to make sure my account didn't expire.

There's a probe for that.

What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[Above]

While there are services, like DynDNS with proprietary interfaces the reality is that dynamic DNS has a standard interface. RFC 2136 style updates should work with any provider, allowing equipment makers to support everyone. While DynDNS has supported people well, I hope this move makes end users demand RFC standard support in devices so that ANY dynamic DNS provider can be used. There are choices other than DynDNS, they have maintained their lead only via a proprietary interface and a market lead.

Re:What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[girlintraining]

What's really disturbing is the sense of entitlement on the internet; Network resources cost money. Maybe not much, but not zero either. But I digress... end users aren't going to demand anything. Appealing to a sudden outburst of education and intelligence is like praying for rain in the middle of a desert. Sure, once in a great, great while you might get lucky and have your wish granted... But I'd humbly suggest a more life-preserving option.

I mean, look at IPv6; IP address space is now gone. There were economic and technical incentives years ago to convert but nobody did. Now IP addresses, a completely artificial and invented thing, has become equivalent to real property... and people are reluctant to switch now because they've made an investment in this intangible.

No, if there's anything the internet has taught me it's this; The answer to "They couldn't POSSIBLY be that stupid..." is always "Oh yes they could."

Re:What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[jd]

The theory is that an ISP should have a fat upsteam pipe of cost X and N thin downstream pipes of cost Y and price Z, such that X + N.Y < N.Z + some reasonable profit margin. The practice is that market forces want Z to be below what can be sustained because it kills off the competitors, provided you don't mind providing a degraded service. The catch is that so many customers are happy with degraded service that the ISPs aren't killed off and Z stays below what the infrastructure can tolerate.

Re:What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[DigiShaman]

Comcast and others are testing IPv6. But let's be real here. There's profit in scarcity. The cell phone industry most assuredly be moving to IPv6, but it won't be pushed very if at all in the home market. Soon, the dynamic public IP will be gone and instead double-NAT will be the default behavior. This will service three purpose.

1. It will extend the useful life out of the IP block an ISP has and thus serve more customers.
2. Double-NAT inherently breaks bit torrent, and VPN connectivity. The former uses excessive bandwidth while VPN users are business oriented users anyways.
3. Forces users that need a public facing IP (like they used to have for free) to now pay for it at two different price points. One for dynamic and other static. Both could now be classified as a business account. Used by non other than VPN users.

Cha Ching Cha Ching $$$$$$!!!! And they laugh all the way to the bank.

Re:What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[Anonymous Coward]

that is not the way a market works. One ISP will switch to ipv6 and offer all those abilities back to their customers. The others will follow suit or go out of business, with some having the ability to survive with the less service due to local market monopoly only.

Re:What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[rdebath]

2. Double-NAT inherently breaks ... VPN connectivity.

No it doesn't. It does break PPTP and IPSEC because the people who created those standards never believed people would be stupid enough to use something as dumb as NAT in the real world. But the more recent OpenVPN and some of the it's copycats (eg IPSEC variants) will always work with NAT at one end and can work the NAT at both ends; if you're using a high performance NAT, eg a linux router or a "CGN".

3. Forces users that need a public facing IP ... to pay

I don't mind the paying so much, but I'll make REAL SURE I don't pay my ISP for the connectivity "extras". Use a third party preferably using OpenVPN (because it's rather hard to identify on the wire) and preferably in another country.

2. Double-NAT inherently breaks ... bit torrent,

Yup, breaks the most efficient file transfer protocol invented so instead the people have to use a VPN or streamed video. (assuming we're assuming the MPAA assumption that all bit torrent is video) Streamed video is the worst; it has to be delivered on time and at the rate required, no slip-ups, no slow-down, no delays. And they hope this will mean their network can be cheaper for the same level of complaints ... fat chance.

Re:What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[makomk]

What's really disturbing is the sense of entitlement on the internet

Not really. DynDNS was a good-enough free option for so long that a lot of home routers don't support sending IP update to anything else. There are alternatives out there and ways of running your own, but that doesn't matter because due to DynDNS providing a free service most people are locked in to using them even if they now have to pay. Their free service harmed competition and now they're reaping the rewards.

Re:What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[arth1]

that is not the way a market works. One ISP will switch to ipv6 and offer all those abilities back to their customers. The others will follow suit or go out of business, with some having the ability to survive with the less service due to local market monopoly only.

That's not how the market works. The switch has to lead to a perceived benefit for the customers. If it means the customers have to invest in extra equipment and gets a couple of percent slowdown in return, and things they were able to do before suddenly becomes too complicated, the winner might very well be the last one to switch.

IPv4 -> IPv6 isn't seamless. Far from it. The best any ISP can hope to do at this time is placing a 6to4 gateway router in front of the customer, and still provide IPv4 NAT. Because the number of devices out there that only speaks IPv4 is enormous, and growing every day.

Never mind the security and privacy concerns with each device being routable and uniquely identifiable. A more robust perimeter defence might be needed, but there is no OTS software or hardware for this yet.

Yes, bring on IPv6, but beware that lots of eggs will be crushed in the process, and the way the market works, it will be the messenger that will be shot; the customer doesn't care whether the problems are due to intrinsic differences in the protocol or due to the ISP. He buys service from the ISP.

Re:What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[QuasiSteve]

What's really disturbing is the sense of entitlement on the internet

Like with, say, 'piracy'?

Yes, I realize there's a difference as 'piracy' presumably doesn't cost the record companies anything, certainly not any network resources. But it's certainly part of the whole 'entitlement' phenomenon and you can't really frown upon one and celebrate the other.

Re:What's most disturbing is the lack of others...

[jrumney]

Whats really disturbing is the sense of entitlement from companies who got their business model wrong at launch. If you offer a free service, and then take it away in an attempt to monetize your service, of course users are going to get upset.

Awesome! Finally.

[GoRK]

I think this is great news. Maybe router manufacturers will now be smart enough to simply include DNS Update (RFC 2136) support instead of the proprietary dyndns garbage. Enter your domain name and a key and you're all set.

Re:Awesome! Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, guys? You do realize that dyndns offers a secure update mechanism over SSL. RFC2136 punts when it comes to security, and basically says it's implementation-dependent.

Re:Awesome! Finally.

[jd]

Yeah, but SSL's useless because the CAs are crap about maintaining security and the customers want dirt-cheap rather than integrity. You can't get cheaper than a thief.

Re:Awesome! Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please learn about basic networking. You do not have to trust CAs at all if you don't want to - each site certificate should not change until it expires (more or less). And your proclamation that SSL is useless, how does it not make non-SSL at least equally as useless?

Re:Awesome! Finally.

[marka63]

RFC 3007, was standardised in 2000 as a method of securing updates.

Support of RFC 2137+3007 is built into Mac OS (System Preferences -> Sharing -> Edit -> Use Dynamic Global Hostname).

For Linux, *BSD add a call to nsupdate from dhclient-exit-hooks.

if test -n "$new_ip_address"
then
  nsupdate -y key:secret
  update delete hostname A
  update add hostname 300 A $new_ip_address
  send
EOF
fi

Re:Awesome! Finally.

[mcavic]

SSL's useless because the CAs are crap about maintaining security

So you're saying online banking is dead?

Re:Awesome! Finally.

[jd]

Online banking typically uses two-step authentication -- precisely because SSL is crap. But even then, do a Slashdot search for CitiBank. If you're brave, you might even want to look up prior discussions on certs and look at which ones mention fake PayPal certs being issued. It has come up a few times. Online banking's not dead, the banks have improved some, but it is dangerous and ill-advised for more than a few banks.

Re:Awesome! Finally.

[jd]

Straw Man. A chocolate fire extinguisher is useless whether or not an imaginary one would also be useless.

Re:Awesome! Finally.

[fa2k]

It's interesting, Windows actually has built-in support for DNS updates.

Re:Awesome! Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

My domain provider here in Norway supports dynamic DNS. They have an application I can download and run on the computer in question. What I don't get is why dyndns bailing on free services is such a bad thing?

First of all (I admit I don't know that much about the US market), here at least, it's not expensive to get a static IP from your provider. Second of all, if you have one dyndns domain, you can point your other not dyndns to the same one using cname given that you want to provide those domains from the same location. Also I don't care much for the 99% of all routers, mostly because 99% of all routers are owned by ordinary people who don't have any use for dyndns. You want to run some service from your home network you're probably better off using an old PC or laptop and using a custom made routing solution. A friend of mine uses one based on freeBSD which I can't remember the name of at the moment.

Well, they're not a charity

[the_humeister]

I use them, but I only have one address anyway.

If it has value to you

[NaCh0]

Vote with your checkbook. We're not talking thousands of dollars or life critical systems here.

Re:If it has value to you

[icebike]

Exactly. Spend a few bucks people.

I've been paying them the pittance they ask every year since dirt. Its well worth it for the reliable service, and
access to machines behind dynamic ips. Way cheaper than a static IP these days, and essential for a
traveling machine. (I register two names per interface on traveling laptops, external IP, and internal IP).

Re:If it has value to you

[CodeReign]

Eh? DynDNS is fucking ripoff for any type of DNS. Or they were two years ago. $50 for basic services or $10 at hover for the same shit. Not a hard choice.

Re:If it has value to you

[mrmeval]

I registered a domain with them for 10 years. Pretty cheap and they don't swat me for camping on it.

I've used Dyndns for a long time and I just paid them for the pro version for a year.

Re:If it has value to you

[fsckmnky]

What happened to the good ole days of the internet, where everyone was going to get filthy rich giving away stuff for free.

Sniff. I'm going to go and have a good nostalgic cry now.

Re:If it has value to you

[AgNO3]

it was easier to sell people houses they couldn't afford then bet that it would all fail and PROFIT. $30 a year for this service WHAT A BUNCH OR GREEDY JERKS. I mean really thats like 3 days of Starbucks wasted on something used to make my life easier. PLEASE

Re:If it has value to you

[fsckmnky]

it was easier to sell people houses they couldn't afford

Yeah. That so totally was dumb. You should write your congressman, as it was the government that was responsible for it.

Re:If it has value to you

[Anonymous Coward]

I read slahdot i dont acually do anything but complain. I thought that was in the TOS.

Old news

[mcrbids]

This was done a *long* time ago. Years? Old news is old.

Re:Old news

[Anonymous Coward]

It couldn't have been that long ago because I've recently added hosts to my account.

Re:Old news

[Wild Wizard]

True just went back and checked my email from August 2010 and there is the notice.

Subject: Changes to NEW DynDNS.com Accounts
Message-ID: bfd1113cf66806ecb6d56590e45d7736@marketer.sendlabs.com
Return-Path: marketer@bouncelabs.com
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:39:14 -0300
From: "DynDNS Support"
Reply-To: support@dyndns.com

Hello:

As you may have seen, we are making some changes to Dynamic DNS accounts.
Instead of making the changes without notice, we wanted to give all of our
existing customers a heads up and explain why we are making these changes.
What changes are you talking about?

Previously we allowed each Dynamic DNS account to have 5 free hostnames and
you could select them from 88 different domains that we own. Now this will
be limited to 2 free hostnames from 18 DynDNS branded domains.

Also, we are increasing the number of hostnames that come with a DynDNS Pro
upgrade. Previously, each DynDNS Pro upgrade gave you the ability to add 25
additional hostnames. We are increasing that number to 30.
Why are you making these changes?

There are a number of reasons that we thought it was important to make
these changes now.

    1. Having 88 free domains to choose from was overwhelming for many of
our new users. By reducing this to 18 it makes it easier for people to get
started.

    2. By limiting the free options to the DynDNS branded domains, it helps
grow the awareness of our services. Although we are happy to offer our free
services, we simply ask that you help spread the word to other people who
might find our paid services helpful. We have to pay those bills somehow.

    3. Looking at the stats of our users over the past 12 years, we see that
the vast majority of people only use 1 free hostname. Our support team has
seen a lot of confusion caused by the five free hostnames, so when you
combine that with the normal use case, it just made sense. We are allowing
the 2nd hostname for those who need to create a WebHop to access your
hostname. If you are going to need more than 1 or 2 hostnames there's a
good chance you are using us for something important. If that's the case,
we simply ask that you pay $15/yr for the DynDNS Pro upgrade, which
provides a number of other benefits.

    4. If you are using our services for business critical needs, you should
consider our Custom DNS service.

What will happen to my current account and hostnames?

Nothing, as long as you keep your hostnames active and up-to-date. If you
allow your account or hostnames to expire, you will have to select from the
new domains instead and will be limited to the 2 free hostnames. To ensure
you aren’t affected by these changes, upgrade to DynDNS Pro for just
$15/yr. Again, there are a number of other benefits to upgrading.
You're just trying to force us to pay you, aren't you?

No, not really. As long as you keep your account active, you won't be
affected by these changes. We would never want to have a user feel like
they were forced to use our services. This does not seem to be a very good
business model to us. You do your part (log into your account or update
your hostname monthly) and we will do ours (continue to offer free Dynamic
DNS services to you).

--
Chris Widner
DynDNS Ninja Squad Sensei

They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[cshark]

Was dealing with a DynDNS owned service awhile back. Took a very famous client from a competitor, and the competitor insisted they owned the web site, even though I had the contract with the previous company that clearly stated that they didn't. Previous company sends DynDNS a DMCA notice, I sent proof the notice was crap (with pertinent sections of the contracted highlighted for easy reading), they took down the web site... and then I moved my DNS to GoDaddy. It's disheartening that DynDNS are such complete shit heads. I will never do business with them, or any company owned by them again, and you shouldn't either.

Re:They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[Anonymous Coward]

You left DynDNS due to DMCA abuse and you then went to GoDaddy? Are you crazy?

Re:They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[wezelboy]

Where are my mod points when I need them?

Re:They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[Zelucifer]

Ok, but the correct response was to send a DMCA counter-notice. DMCA Safe Harbor requires them to take down infringement, unless a counter-notice is filed.

Re:They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad when GoDaddy is actually better. Make of that what you will.

Re:They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[Anonymous Coward]

tl;dr: went from shit company to shit company

Re:They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[nedlohs]

So instead of sending the simple counter notice that requires them to put ot back you decided to send something else that acting upon would expose them to legal liability.

And you were surprised that they decided not to lose their safe harbour protection?

Re:They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's not. What's really sad is thinking GoDaddy is better.

Re:They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[jamesh]

You are directing your hostility towards the wrong thing here... surely DMCA is the real issue.

Actually I kind of wouldn't mind DMCA takedown notices except there doesn't seem to be enough punishment for malicious takedown notices so (as in your case) it's too easy to just shoot one off and see if it sticks.

Re:They're complete asshats about DMCA emails

[TheRaven64]

So, you moved from their service because you did the wrong thing? If they ignore a DMCA takedown notice, then they are liable for any copyright infringement. Any US-based hosting company will do the same (which is a good reason not to do business with them, but I digress). If you send a DMCA counter notice, then they are absolved of any liability if they restore the content. The dispute is then between the person filing the notice and the counter notice (and, since the original notice is signed under penalty of perjury, you can probably sue the person who filed it for loss of earnings while the site was down if it was invalid). Sending them other documents, no matter how relevant, does not absolve them of liability.

In short, your complaint makes as much sense as saying 'they asked for my password, I sent them a copy of my passport and drivers license, and they didn't let me connect'.

Who is being disingenuous?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like the router manufacturers, who have essentially been free-riding on dyndns' service as a selling point for their routers.

timothy ...

[Udo Schmitz]

You actually read the submission and checked the facts, possibly avoiding a flame fest. This is totally unacceptable and goes against everything /. stands for.

Re:timothy ...

[Artifex]

You actually read the submission and checked the facts, possibly avoiding a flame fest. This is totally unacceptable and goes against everything /. stands for.

"You cannot go against nature, for if you do
go against nature, that's part of nature too!"

Timothy's one of the few editors left from the old days; don't scare him off.

Re:timothy ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Timothy is just as much a fudster as all the other supposed "editors". Someone must have been posting under his account since this doesn't match his usual behavior.

Re:timothy ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You cannot go against nature, for if you do go against nature, that's part of nature too!"

Love and Rockets, No New Tale to Tell; Earth, Sun, Moon, 1987

If I may... my only complaint with the song is the clumsy, alliterated cliche "little lives." Could have been written "sometimes our lives," or anything that avoided the vocalist purposelessly annunciating and hooking a cliche fragment that sort of distracts or conceptually overwhelms the listener with internalizing the weirdness of the singer's (Karloffish?) expression of these particular syllables rather than the spirit of the meaning of the entire phrase, which is to make some commentary on how collectively, unique lives are similar. I have nothing against cliche, per se, nor creepy weirdness, nor alliteration... but these tools of the 80's rock artist should not to be used indiscriminately. Other than that and the triggered drums, this is a perfect pop song. Correct these very minor mistakes, L&R, and your minor hit could be a real treasure.

Re:timothy ...

[Anonymous Coward]

While I disagree with your characterization of David J's vocalizations as "Karloffish," (understood to mean ... vampire-like, perhaps?). I probably would have fixed the guitars, though. Good song.

I'm using no-ip.com

[Dwedit]

I'm using no-ip.com for my dynamic DNS needs. How do they compare against the others?

Re:I'm using no-ip.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know how they compare, but I've been happy with them for 3 years now. I only had one incident recently where they termed my entry due to inactivity but I had updated it about a week before and they sent no notice. I found it late on a Saturday, sent an email, and it was fixed by the time I woke up on Sunday.

I went with them because some of their domains were (are still?) accessible from the DoD networks when I did some contracting where DynDNS domains were blocked.

Re:I'm using no-ip.com

[AgNO3]

I use Zoneedit and have for nearly 12 years. I hope they don't suck.

Days of old

[UberJugend]

ml.org :(

no-ip.com

[Cyko_01]

I have been using no-ip for years without any problems. It is supported on several brand s of routers and in case it isn't there is an update client (also free) that you can run on windows/mac/linux/BSD/unix that will keep your monitor your (external) IP address for changes and updates the dns records at no-ip.

This is news?

[mark-t]

This policy change is many months old, maybe even over a year.

When I saw the article, I thought that maybe there were even more changes, but I saw nothing new that I did not know since at least the first quarter of this year. I'd have to go rifle through my email archive to know for sure exactly when I first heard about this change.

Wayback machine

[joshuac]

amusing to see how http://dyndns.org/ has changed over the years; in 1999 complaining on the front page about the programmer leaving and taking all his code with him to a completely anonymous, plasticky "professional" look in 2011 and all the slow changes in between,

Re:Wayback machine

[whitelabrat]

No doubt. I recall when they were begging for any surplus equipment folks could donate to keep them running. I tossed them a few bucks just to help get them going. The freetards can complain, but I still think they're awesome. Just registered two domains with them.

Re:Wayback machine

[Elrond, Duke of URL]

Agreed. Way back in their broke and begging days I donated something like $20 or $30 to them. At the time they were one of the only dynamic DNS services and it worked just fine, even then.

Later, when they began offering additional commercial options, I found that my initial free account had been upgraded to a lifetime pro account (it's labeled Dynamic DNS Pro - Permanent) because I had been generous to them in those early times. It's stayed that way, too, ever since 2002. I don't get all of the commercial offerings, but I do get access to tech support and all of the available domain name choices (of which there are vastly more than when I initially made my account).

That move was enough to keep me around all this time and if I am in the need of commercial DNS services, they'll be the first place I check.

Re:Wayback machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I have on of those permanent accounts, that I had nearly forgot about. I used to host game servers and sftp, but lately I have not used it for anything. This at announcement at least reminded me to log in and update the email address. :)

Re:Wayback machine

[fa2k]

Oh come on.. Link please?

Re:Wayback machine

[joshuac]

Well since you said "please"...

http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://dyndns.org

Unfortunately since you had to ask someone for the URL with an extremely simple syntax I think you'll be required to hand in your geek card now.

Re:Wayback machine

[rahvin112]

They purchased Everydns.net one of the last free DNS providers that was independent of domain name purchases and promptly killed the free service. They lost me permanently as a customer for that.

Re:Warning Goatse!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is bullshit. afraid.org has a lot of good stuff. I just registered an account. There are loads of domains from which you can get a subdomain too. There's a dynamic DNS section too.

Old News!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This "news" is "old".

DynDNS has been "adjusting" what they provide for free for a few years now.

Have they changed the 'rules' or something?

[AbRASiON]

I own a German ADSL modem from a company called AVM, the Fritzbox 7390. (Don't buy one) for some reason, intermittantly it's not logging correctly into the DynDNS account all the time. I have had to re-activate my account at least twice now with DynDNS due to lack of activity. (even though I use the actual domain name daily)

I'm not sure if they want me to log in via the web instead, or the modem is going screwy, or what but it's concerning me as I too, like a few others here have had these names for a heck of a long time.
FWIW My billion based ADSL modem offsite has also possibly had the same expiration problem in the last 12 months too (I can't quite recall) - definitely a concern.

Re:Have they changed the 'rules' or something?

[Anonymous Coward]

DynDNS is changing things around every now and then. Just update your 7390 to the latest Labor (beta) FW and be happy again. The issue is fixed there. In my experience AVM usually reacts fairly quickly to such issues with a new labor (beta) release.

DynDNS Cuts Back Free DNS Options

[Oppiet30]

I thought it was cut back from 5 to 3 or something. I better go and check my dyndns settings.

I was notified 27 Aug 2010

[DragonHawk]

Agreed -- this is old news. I got my notice about this change on 27 Aug 2010 -- about a year and a half ago. Submitter has been asleep at the switch.

Given that they're still giving me free stuff, just not quite as much free stuff, I didn't really feel all that upset about it. :)

Here's most of the text of the notice:

From: "DynDNS Support"
To: dragonhawk@
Subject: Changes to NEW DynDNS.com Accounts
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:39:14 -0300
Reply-To: support@dyndns.com
Return-Path: marketer@bouncelabs.com

What changes are you talking about?

Previously we allowed each Dynamic DNS account to have 5 free hostnames and you could select them from 88 different domains that we own. Now this will be limited to 2 free hostnames from 18 DynDNS branded domains.

Also, we are increasing the number of hostnames that come with a DynDNS Pro upgrade. Previously, each DynDNS Pro upgrade gave you the ability to add 25 additional hostnames. We are increasing that number to 30.

Why are you making these changes?

There are a number of reasons that we thought it was important to make these changes now.

Having 88 free domains to choose from was overwhelming for many of our new users. By reducing this to 18 it makes it easier for people to get started.
By limiting the free options to the DynDNS branded domains, it helps grow the awareness of our services. Although we are happy to offer our free services, we simply ask that you help spread the word to other people who might find our paid services helpful. We have to pay those bills somehow.
Looking at the stats of our users over the past 12 years, we see that the vast majority of people only use 1 free hostname. Our support team has seen a lot of confusion caused by the five free hostnames, so when you combine that with the normal use case, it just made sense. We are allowing the 2nd hostname for those who need to create a WebHop to access your hostname. If you are going to need more than 1 or 2 hostnames there's a good chance you are using us for something important. If that's the case, we simply ask that you pay $15/yr for the DynDNS Pro upgrade, which provides a number of other benefits.
If you are using our services for business critical needs, you should consider our Custom DNS service.
What will happen to my current account and hostnames?

Nothing, as long as you keep your hostnames active and up-to-date. If you allow your account or hostnames to expire, you will have to select from the new domains instead and will be limited to the 2 free hostnames. To ensure you arenâ(TM)t affected by these changes, upgrade to DynDNS Pro for just $15/yr. Again, there are a number of other benefits to upgrading.

You're just trying to force us to pay you, aren't you?

No, not really. As long as you keep your account active, you won't be affected by these changes. We would never want to have a user feel like they were forced to use our services. This does not seem to be a very good business model to us. You do your part (log into your account or update your hostname monthly) and we will do ours (continue to offer free Dynamic DNS services to you).

Long time ago...

[Junta]

Noticed when my router evidently had most user space apps crash for some reason and, among other things, my domain 'lapsed', and I couldn't get it back for free. Now this is particularly crummy as unlike a 'real' domain, you can't just take it to another provider (you only have a host record in their domain, you don't actually have a domain that can be transferred) because you are mad.

Re:Long time ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's terrible. You should demand a refund!

Not really proprietary...

[DragonHawk]

DynDNS, they have maintained their lead only via a proprietary interface and a market lead.

Dyn has submitted their HTTP update API as an IETF draft:

http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-jennings-app-dns-update-02.txt

So it's not proprietary (limited to or owned by them). You might call it non-standard, but if that draft was accepted it would be on the IETF standards track.

Also, Dyn *does* offer DNS UPDATE support, but only for paying customers:

http://dyn.com/support/clients/dynamic-dns-updates-via-tsig/

My anecdote can beat up your anecdote

[DragonHawk]

It's disheartening that DynDNS are such complete shit heads.

I've done business with Dyn, Inc., before, and found them cluefull and willing to help. I know some of the people who work there, and they are not complete shit heads.

Sorry about your situation. Another reason to hate the DMCA, I think.

Rules are the same, AFAIK

[DragonHawk]

As far as I know, the rules are the same.

For the free hostname, you have to submit an update at least once every 30 days, even if your IP address hasn't changed. Otherwise, the free account will be deleted.

If you send updates *too often*, you'll get blocked for abuse. "Too often" isn't defined anywhere that I find easily, but more than once every several days or so is a good threshold to use. You'll get an email if this happens. Also, the "too often" limit only applies if your IP address hasn't actually changed -- legit updates get a different scale.

I update every 15 days, and have never had an issue.

Since you mention your model is having intermittent trouble anyway, it sounds like the problem is just crappy modem software. There's a lot of that out there. (LinkSys's DNS update client was broken for *years*, and they're one of the biggest SOHO router vendors.) I'd suggest disabling DNS update on your modem and using a known-good client on a PC behind your modem.

http://dyn.com/support/clients/

limited to 5?

[arbiter1]

When has it been limited to 5, for last year or 2 its told me i only have a limit to use 2 on free account?

Can't see the issue

[MBGMorden]

Personally, I can't really find much of an issue here. Yes, 99% of routers might only have DynDNS as an option, but I'd also wager than about 95% of the routers out there don't use a dynamic DNS server anyways, and of those that do, very few care to setup more than 1 domain name. I doubt this change will affect very many users.

Crummy wanting to be paid for their work

[DragonHawk]

Now this is particularly crummy as unlike a 'real' domain, you can't just take it to another provider ... because you are mad.

Yah, how *dare* they not let you take their property (a domain name they pay for) and use it for free?!?

Hey, BTW, I'm going to use a few dozen megabytes of storage on your hard drive, that's okay, right? Don't be crummy and say "no".

Re:Crummy wanting to be paid for their work

[makomk]

Yah, how *dare* they not let you take their property (a domain name they pay for) and use it for free?!?

It seems scummy because they managed to lure a whole bunch of people in by offering service for free and then changing the rules, using the fact that users can't move their subdomains to anywhere else to force them to pay for an overpriced service. It's not actually terribly hard to run your own dynamic DNS, it's just that there wasn't any reason to and it didn't work as well because most consumer routers only supported DynDNS.

It is hard to understand

[Anonymous Coward]

When they put the body in the subject and capitalise the rest.

There are other options for DynDNS only routers

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth a look: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/What_is_DD-WRT%3F

Open source router firmware provides support for a number of dynamic dns providers. Including: DynDNS, easyDNS, FreeDNS, No-IP, TZO, ZoneEdit, custom, and others

Re:There are other options for DynDNS only routers

[jd]

I only use open-source router firmware. The stuff normally provided has no worthwhile support for IPTables (or replacements thereof), IPv6, Multicast, Dynamic DNS, honeypots, IPSec, SK/IP, AQM, or indeed anything much that Linux has.

Re:There are other options for DynDNS only routers

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point is more or less valid, but DD-WRT is not open source. In fact they are quite aggressively violating the GPL by not releasing the source code for their interface. If you care, use OpenWRT or Tomato.

Re:There are other options for DynDNS only routers

[arth1]

Is there any open source router firmware that supports load balancing and dynamic failover between multiple WANs (with corresponding dynamic DNS update)?

When I bought my router, there sure weren't any of those (not counting using a generic Linux server as a router and writing your own failover programs).

Re:There are other options for DynDNS only routers

[Almost-Retired]

Support? Not really, so that box is shut off forever at my 20.

Re:There are other options for DynDNS only routers

[ClimberPunk]

Except that DynDNS is broken for a number of devices using any recent build of DD-WRT.

Re:There are other options for DynDNS only routers

[jd]

Not that I know of. The three links below can give you dynamic failover, and if you install the MOSIX kernel (free for 4 nodes) you've automatic load balancing, but these all work at the node level on a single WAN. I can find nothing similar that would give you extranet failover/load balancing.

http://www.linux-ha.org/wiki/Releases
http://clusterlabs.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.corosync.org/doku.php

Re:There are other options for DynDNS only routers

[Ethanol]

In fact, you don't need a dynamic DNS provider at all. My home router (a Netgear WNDR3700, costs about $85) is running CeroWRT, which includes BIND 9, which takes care of dynamic DNS by itself. It also does DNSSEC validation, and serves a dozen or so DNSSEC-signed domains. It's also my web server, IPv6 tunnel endpoint, shell server, and a passel of other things. Current uptime 224 days. Consumer router hardware can do a lot these days.

(Full disclosure: I'm a BIND 9 author and helped with the CeroWRT port.)

Re:There are other options for DynDNS only routers

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nmedia.net/flashdist/

therego.

carp+pfsync+ifstated.

and if you need that much crap, get of yer lazy butt and configure it

Too bad

[hymie!]

I'm a very happy DynDNS customer paying for a small assortment of DynDNS services. But I probably wouldn't be if they hadn't started me off with a few free Dynamic DNS hostnames as a loss-leader.

roll own dynamic DNS, even with same router

[Sipper]

If you have a rented server somewhere running a DNS server, then the usual suggestion I make is to roll your own dynamic DNS. Before somone says "but my router only supports DyDNS", there are solutions that can allow you to update your own dynamic DNS anyway -- the main trick is getting your public IP address. If you also run your own web server, it's quite simple to create a web page like "whatismyip" in PHP:

(start PHP here)
echo $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
(stop PHP here)

And from there you can make a custom shell script that checks your public IP, compares it with what your DNS server has for the entry, and then update your DNS server if needed. This doesn't need to be done at the router -- it can be done through it if necessary. If you run Bind9, look at the 'nsupdate' utility -- and of particular note, it's possible to do this dynamic DNS update via TCP rather than UDP. That way you can guarantee that the update will get there. AFAIK all of the popular DNS servers have a way of doing dynamic DNS updates such that they don't have to be done right at the router.

It's more convenient to do this at the router, though, because the router is on all the time and desktops/laptops aren't. So if you really want to also run a custom router to do the job for you, you might like the Alix hardware such as this:

http://pcengines.ch/alix2d3.htm

Debian runs nicely on the Alix hardware directly, using a kernel for a 486.

Re:roll own dynamic DNS, even with same router

[neurocutie]

Yup, almost exactly what I do and have been doing for 9 years. Of course its not something that most commonfolk can do.

Re:roll own dynamic DNS, even with same router

[Sipper]

I agree that it takes some effort and there's a learning curve to doing it. Might help if others had a reference with some step-by step instructions, I suppose -- and I found this:

http://www.coredump.us/index.php?n=Main.Alix2c3WithDebianSqueeze

Nihilistic bullshit

[macraig]

The router doesn't HAVE TO do the updating. What are you, new here? Pick a different free service like afraid.org, run an associated updating service or background app on a PC connected to the router, and shut your whiny yapper.

Stupid sky-is-falling nihilists.

Re:Nihilistic bullshit

[fa2k]

The router doesn't HAVE TO do the updating.

The benefit of having the router do it is that the router knows its WAN-facing IP, and that's harder to get on the computers on the LAN (though there are plenty of options). But really, you can just run a cron job on the router, and execute wget or nsupdate when the IP has changed. Your router supports shell scripts, right? ;)

Open Source Firmware to the Rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth a look: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/What_is_DD-WRT%3F

Open source router firmware provides support for a number of dynamic dns providers. Including: DynDNS, easyDNS, FreeDNS, No-IP, TZO, ZoneEdit, custom, and others

Not only that, but they killed EveryDNS

[mysidia]

They took over handling of the "EveryDNS" free service, with promises to continue the service.

But now they have forced all EveryDNS users who want to keep using the service to pay them to migrate.

And EveryDNS is gone.

Obviously the choice of DynDNS to be the ones to take over the service was a bit disingenuous, since, it was just a strategy to make more $$$ while pretending to be altruistic

Re:Not only that, but they killed EveryDNS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the only ones who will be forced to pay are those who let their accounts expire. If you like your account, keep it active. There is no breach of promise.

And the paid service is only $20/year.

Re:Not only that, but they killed EveryDNS

[mysidia]

No, the only ones who will be forced to pay are those who let their accounts expire. If you like your account, keep it active. There is no breach of promise.

First of all... with EveryDNS accounts didn't expire; it doesn't make sense for DNS accounts to expire, you don't need to login to a website to use DNS services -- you just need to keep the domain registered with the registrar, to be using DNS service.
Second of all... they are only doing that for one year or so; in the not so distant future, it is likely the EveryDNS users will be forced to pay or leave, why else would they put a time limit?
Second of all; that's only as long as you already had an account; you don't need to add any more domains to it.....
Yeah, they let you keep your old account and services active (for now); you just can't make any changes to it; they will only continue to service domains you had active at the time they were still providing a free service. As soon as you need to make a change or add a new domain, you find they didn't live up to their promise at all -- they don't continue to provide the free service under compatible conditions.

And the paid service is only $20/year.

No.... Third of all their service is Really expensive; it's $39/Year per Zone for DynDNS standard.

If I have about 15 personal domains. That would be $585 a year for DynDNS' basic service; on top of the $7.80/year per domain annual registrar renewal cost.

They killed ath.cx for free users.

[ahfoo]

That was what pissed me off. But yeah, this is old news.

Hell I think dynamic DNS should be a basic function of the net. That's how it was supposed to go. What is this Facebook shit. We're supposed to have our own servers. Indeed, back in the day it was actually originally set up where you directly applied for a class C IP range. That was a perfectly reasonable premise. It's interesting how far we've gotten away from that rather simple concept.

Re:They killed ath.cx for free users.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately my .ath.cx still works! :D

Re:They killed ath.cx for free users.

[Nimey]

So does mine. Tomato Firmware has native support for DynDNS so as long as I don't leave the router off for a month it should keep renewing automatically.

I'm curious why they chose to kill certain subdomains for free accounts and keep others; what were the criteria?

hadn't noticed

[bored_engineer]

huh. I've been paying for DNS registration and a dynamic account through them for so long that I hadn't noticed the change. The only annoyance that had any affect on me was when I changed from a static to dynamic DNS with one of my three ISPs. Right now, my wife (plus two kids) and I live in two different locales. I recently switched her ISP to a faster service, but have to overlap the service while she updates e-mail addresses with her various e-mail accounts. I had trouble when I wanted the former static address to update dynamically, but once I understood that this (with the paid service) happened on the client side, I was a happy camper. I would have been happy sooner if they gave explicit instruction for this, but it all worked out for me in the end.

about 3 months late there.

[davidork]

This is OLD news. They're not shutting off the free service, just limiting it, and if you were already a free customer it doesn't affect you.

Disingenuous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most manufacturers offer DynDNS as their only option. Removing the free service for non-commercial folks seems disingenuous when they are the only option for many users."

What's disingenuous is making a profit off of products that leverage free services without putting anything back in. Router manufacturers should be giving dynamic DNS providers a cut of what they make to help keep the service going. Include a coupon for a free subscription (a month, six months, a year, whatever) to the premium service as an incentive to the buyer.

This happened a while ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Where they took away ath.cx (which I was using). Now one has to use a dyndns branded thing unless they want to have to pay up.

"It makes it easier for users" No. It doesn't. Users want shorter domain names (like ath.cx), not long domain names (like dyndns-music.com)

router-ready DNS UPDATE client

[p00ya]

Shameless plug: I wrote dudders, a DNS UPDATE client a few years ago for basically this purpose. It only supports SIG(0) rather than TSIG (but public key authentication is cool, right?), but I had it running on my OpenWRT-based router happily (unfortunately nsupdate wouldn't fit).

Do you seem to be grandfathered too?

[Rix]

I gave them $10 (or something) way back when and it seems I have an indefinitely paid account.

That's pretty classy in my book.

I gave them $10 a decade ago

[Rix]

I still have a permanently free Pro account.

That's pretty classy in my books.

Re:I gave them $10 a decade ago

[Bruce Perens]

I gave them money too, and I don't have a "pro" account.

But I can't say I want one now. I gave them money so they'd stay free. They didn't stay free.

OMG....

[AgNO3]

Where on Earth will people find $5 a month to pay for something that can be handled by software that is free and what routers don't also support zoneedit?

Good

[thetoadwarrior]

I've used DynDns for years for free and realised that actually it's not that expensive and I like the other features. I have no problem with them kicking the life long moochers off if it secures their business so those of us who pay can ensure they'll be around. There is no money to be made on the free accounts. They can't even get ad revenue from it so suck it up and pay the couple of bucks or make your own.

Nice to hear...

[darrenm]

I find it nice to hear stories like this when corporations get larger they still remember the people that help get them going. I had no idea that there was an account type called Dynamic DNS Pro - Permanent.

Props to Dyn for doing that.

ddclient - know it, use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using dyndns free since 1998. I was an early donater too, so I've had "lifetime DNS" from them all this time. My company uses a different DNS provider and we pay 2x every year what I paid Dyn in 1998.

Anyway, I dropped a ddclient instance on a box way back then and forgot about it. Every 3-5 yrs, when I upgrade my server infrastructure, I move ddclient to a new machine. It has been running inside a VM for the last 5 yrs, not forgotten, but not any issue. Every month, it confirm that my machines are still here. I do not do anything manually.

A few yrs ago, Mom finally got a full-time internet connection. I signed her up with a Dyn account and have been remoting into her Lubuntu desktop doing weekly patches ever since. Her account is separate from mine. Her router (actually an old router of mine) manages it. She lives 800 miles away, so if there ever is a network problem, I'm not certain what I'll do. Never had any issues, however. NEVER.

dyn inc service and alternatives

[ExoBuZz]

This thread is worth a read regarding dyndns and their practises.

They recently bought everydns and editdns, offered existing users who paid or donated "free" accounts, and then once they bought it, went back on their word. the free accounts included a migration fee for domains, and the accounts were limited, so users would have to pay again to get the same level of service they may have paid for at editdns for example (and due to dyndns strange pricing where you have a limit of 75 subdomains on the standard paid account, you may have to pay them a significant amount of money)

Also worth noting, then editdns users expressed their concerns, dyndns were very quick to close down their old forum and place with a note to email their staff.

Worth noting that Hurrican Electric have a free dns service (http://dns.he.net) - with up to 50 domains allowed and it can operate as a secondary dns also. They also include a dynamic dns facility. There are some other free options left, but how long until dyndns buys them too ? :)

Re:dyn inc service and alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth noting that Hurrican Electric have a free dns service (http://dns.he.net [he.net]) - with up to 50 domains allowed and it can operate as a secondary dns also. They also include a dynamic dns facility. There are some other free options left, but how long until dyndns buys them too ? :)

I don't think that will ever happen. H.E. is in the business of data centers, transit, etc. and they're one of the big boys, since the mid-90s.

Yes, their free dns service was released just a few years ago, and it wasn't even that advertised, and I've recently switched to it since everydns.net got bought by dyndns.

Yes I'm a happy customer of H.E. (we have a cage, unlimited 100mbps cap), and they have very competent technical folks, as long as you do your part of systems admin'ing your own servers.

For their free services, I also have several tunnelled IPv6 connectivity for some years now ;-)

Re:dyn inc service and alternatives

[rahvin112]

IMO they are trying to shutdown on the free DNS providers to try to drive business. I can only hope that an endless amount spring up. I'd be willing to bet that if you want a big payoff setup a free DNS draw in a few hundered thousand free users and then wait to get purchased by DynDNS, you could probably make a career out of starting and selling DNS providers to them.

easy

[Anonymous Coward]

might not be click-able as a hyperlink in webpage but findable nevertheless:
you just register: [nu.dyndns.info] and blob on a registration page, a "IP-2-Name" database and a simple search?
wrap that whole setup/thing into a nice RPM and share it via bit-torrent?
-
prolly forgot a few steps .. oh well : )

Bait and switch..

[Junta]

My problem is the bait and switch. If I was going to *pay* for a domain, I sure as hell wouldn't have selected one as limited as a DynDNS subdomain, but I did because it *was* free. Paying to have a host record in one of their domain when for the same amount of money I can have my own domain seems ridiculous.

Re:Happy Holidays from the Golden Girls!

[schroedingers_hat]

Can someone please explain this troll to me? I see it here so often recently.

Is it just to get people to correct the cosmonaut bit, or to confuse people like me who look for something deeper?

It is a business.

[thesh0ck]

It is a business... You were getting something for free. Now if you want it you have to pay $20 per YEAR. Not really a huge cost in my opinion. If you really need to use it you get a single address for free, or you pay for more. I havent had the need for it in years since comcast gives me the same ip for years at a time and when it changes I just login to gmail and go to the bottom and click "Details" and it shows me all the ips that I have logged in with and one of them is my home machine.

RFC 2136

[orange]

The real problem of course is the fact that the router manufacturers don't actually support dynamic DNS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_DNS ....
I almost returned mine cause the box said DynamicDNS but meant dyndns - only thing stopping me was my research which told me that's what most of them call Dynamic DNS.

Re:Happy Holidays from the Golden Girls!

[Intron]

Can someone please explain this troll to me?

The first line is to thank you for being a friend.
The second line is a metaphor describing life as a journey.
The third line is very deep. You can meditate for hours on the connections with the first two lines: cosmonauts obviously take long journeys, for example.

The second stanza is again a metaphor, this time on life being a party and the importance of having good friends. This again connects with the sentiments from the first stanza.

DynDNS removed my re-direct without warning!

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a DynDNS account for about 5 years, then suddenly it stopped working. When I logged on to see what was happening, they had removed it from my account and forced me to create a new one out of the previously mentioned 5 choices. I had a lot of things linked in to that re-direct, and had a hell of a time to change it all! All of this with no warning!

Auto update and still got a letter

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

Oh yes, well i have that and recently recieved this email from them ANYWAYS:

----
Dear Dyn Customer:

Your Dyn account '???????????', has DynDNS free hostname(s) that are due
to expire in 5 days. Note that DynDNS free hostnames are deleted after 30
days of inactivity.

You can prevent your hostname(s) from expiring here:

https://account.dyndns.com/confirm/????????????????

If you wish to keep your hostname(s) active and not risk missing email
notifications like this one, purchase a DynDNS Pro upgrade today.

http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-pro/

If you no longer need your hostname(s) or don't know what this email is
for, you may simply allow expiration.

Thanks,
dyn.com
twitter.com/dyninc

*** Please do not reply to this email. If you have additional questions,
please visit http://dyn.com/support/ ***
-----

And this domain is updated daily by my pfsense. No big deal, its just a backup incase my regular dns goes down. But i have had the domain since something stupid like 1999 so i am somewaht attached. Not 20$/yr+++ attached mind you.

It may be possible that my client wasnt working(we'll see if i get another one next month), but do you want to take that risk with only a 5 day grace period in which to realize your error?

Their entire home page seems more inclined to make money now. There is one tiny link for support. No account page or anything. Pfsense is good because i can switch to about 9 different dynamic dns providers, but still annoying. Wikipedia also says that dyndns was originally released as an "open system" with many home router companies signing on. In that case, it wasnt as if these home router companies were freeloading, as some have sugested in earlier posts.

business as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

I have found it strange we demand folks to give up time and make it reliable - and I want it for free.
things cost money.

The good part about paying for a service is when its down the pressure on them is higher. just yesterday called my vps provider with a cpanel license issue and they fixed it while I was on the phone. the time saved on updates and recompiles and 24x7 on site support and that all the packages work well together saves me dozens of hours a year and my wife and kids get more of my time.

I don't like what they have done but I understand it.

IPv6?

[Malibee]

If you know enough about how the Internet to understand dynamic DNS updates work, you can figure out IPv6, too. Dynamic DNS sites are low traffic, so it's not a particularly onerous task to distribute a hosts file, or maintain a private DNS server. If you have to access the server from an IPv4-only network that you don't control, use NAT-traversal technologies like AYIYA.

disingenuous???

[khipu]

What is "disingenous" about it?

And why do you think they are under any obligation to continue free service?

one free hostname

[nurb432]

For the home user, that should be plenty. If you are doing some sort of business, if you need more is it too much to ask to pony up a few bucks?

Home router infrastructure based on /free/ DNS?

[Kaz Kylheku]

What a bunch of incredible crock!

Firstly, most home users do not use any DNS, free or otherwise. No "home router infrastructure" as such depends on this. What depends on it is being able to "phone home" by domain rather than IP address. That is not "infrastructure", and nobody owes that to you. Anyway, if anyone did owe that to you, it would be your provider, who is probably gouging you to begin with, not some independent outfit out there on the net.

Secondly, the basic paid service is cheap. DynDNS charges me about fifty bucks a year to keep my domain registered, and the DNS service. For that I get several host names in my domain, and an MX record for receiving mail. Pennies a day!

Having your own domain rather than some generic one that is obviously not yours (and instantly marks you as a freetard) is worth every one of those pennies.

Beggars can't be choosers

[DragonHawk]

My problem is the bait and switch. If I was going to *pay* for a domain, I sure as hell wouldn't have selected one as limited as a DynDNS subdomain, but I did because it *was* free. Paying to have a host record in one of their domain when for the same amount of money I can have my own domain seems ridiculous.

So, let me get this straight:
1. You were getting something for free
2. They changed things, and let you know as long as you kept your infrastructure working, they would continue to give it to you for free
3. You failed to keep your infrastructure working
4. You are under no obligation to keep using the service
5. You can continue getting something for free, for a name change
6. Or you can even pay, if you really value the name that much
7. Or you can jump ship and go elsewhere, paying or free

And that's crummy? Your sense of entitlement staggers me.

Bait-and-switch implies that there's some investment on your part. There's none. You started paying nothing and you can still pay nothing. You're complaining that not only must Dyn give you a handout, they have to give it to you *your way*.

Ever hear the expression, "Beggars can't be choosers"?

If it's so easy, why are you complaining?

[DragonHawk]

using the fact that users can't move their subdomains to anywhere else to force them to pay for an overpriced service

How are they forcing anyone to pay for anything? You're welcome to get your free DNS name with any other provider who offers that. Heck, they'll even keep giving you free service. Only if you want a particular vanity domain do you have to pay for it.

It's not actually terribly hard to run your own dynamic DNS

Then go ahead. It's not hard, so not crummy to ask you to do it, right?

Free isn't cheap enough?

[DragonHawk]

This is important because some people might not have seen an email from DynDNS for a decade or more, and will be very surprised when their things stop working after all this time.

It will only stop working if *your* stuff stops working. And they'll email you telling you your free account is going to expire before it goes.

After getting a *decade* of free service, complaining that you *might* have to change to a *different* but *still free* name, but *only* if you can't keep *your own stuff* working, seems like a bit much to me. Just how much of a handout do you want?

I'm astounded at the sense of entitlement people are displaying over this issue. It's *FREE* but that's still not cheap enough for some people.

Re:Free isn't cheap enough?

[adolf]

Wow, you sure do like to froth at the mouth. *and* *stuff*

So, picture it. A long time ago, Joe installs a few cameras around the outside of his house connected to a hardware DVR, which Joe installed himself because Joe is handy enough with running cables. It works adequately, and Joe is happy with it. But Joe's Internet Kung-Fu is not very strong, so it just sits there disconnected from the world.

Joe runs into his acquaintance Localgeek, and in the course of a normal conversation, Joe mentions to Localgeek that he has this camera system. Localgeek, after learning that it's not connected to teh Interweb, mentions that Joe can view his cameras from Randomspot with a bit of Kung-Fu.

Joe likes the idea, which Joe didn't even know was possible, and asks Localgeek if he would mind stopping by to have a look at it.

Localgeek stops by and leisurely configures the port forwarding and dynamic DNS in about 20 minutes time. Joe tosses him a few bucks, and says thank you.

Years go by, everything works fine. Joe switches ISPs to a company called Newhost, and everything works fine. Localgeek has long forgotten having even worked on Joe's cameras, and Joe still enjoys viewing the system from Randomspot.

Except Newhost doesn't rotate IP addresses very often, and Joe's old router isn't bright to send updates to dyndns unless the IP address actually changes.

And then, one day, Joe finds that he can't view his cameras from Randomspot anymore. (Woops.)

Joe is bemused by this, because things always worked fine. Joe calls up Localgeek, and Localgeek immediately understands the problem and decides to change the firmware on the router to one with a better dyndns implementation that can send updates regularly.

But then both Joe and Localgeek are very surprised when they discover that the previous service isn't available anymore. Joe never received an email from dyndns warning him about the expiration because his old email address (from way back when) stopped working when he switched to Newhost.

Is Joe's surprise because:

1. He has a warped sense of entitlement and lacks sufficient public admonishment for his overwhelming greed

2. He neglected to retain Localgeek with an ongoing service contract for maintenance on his $50 router

or

3. His Kung-Fu is simply very weak.

Re:Free isn't cheap enough?

[HereIAmJH]

It will only stop working if *your* stuff stops working. And they'll email you telling you your free account is going to expire before it goes.

Not necessarily. I never received an e-mail telling me that my host name was expiring. I just know that one day it stopped working and when I checked their system it told me that it no longer existed, but was available if I wanted to subscribe. I didn't use it very often, it was just a means to access my home network from a remote location occasionally. I had my router set up to automatically keep the listing updated.

I no longer have my host set up with DynDNS, and no longer recommend them. Not because I'm pissed that they wouldn't give it to me free. But because after years of using dnsalias.net they made the arbitrary decision that this particular domain was now a premium domain and I couldn't get my hostname back without subscribing. They didn't have a problem providing a free host name, just not the one I had been using for years. So if I'm going to make a change, it doesn't matter to me whether it's with them or someone else.

They can sit back and say, "we he wasn't paying anyway." But like many who have been around here for some time, I'm one of those people who dabble with many technologies. Making me the one who is consulted when the paying customers are looking for solutions. I tend to recommend things that I am familiar with and have had a good experience using.

Re:Free isn't cheap enough?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Except Newhost doesn't rotate IP addresses very often, and Joe's old router isn't bright to send updates to dyndns unless the IP address actually changes.

That's not an issue. DynDNS started expiring hosts that hadn't checked in for 30 days at least five years ago. There was a thread on dd-wrt boards about it (which got a patch), so that could narrow down the date if needed.

If the stuff is working now, it will keep working for the foreseeable future.

If it's really important, though, he shouldn't rely on a free service to be there forever.

Re:Free isn't cheap enough?

[adolf]

So what if Joe had Localgeek work the Kung-Fu more than five years ago, and switched ISPs less than five years ago. What then? Does that make my argument "not an issue"? Why, or why not?

dyndns has been around for a very long time in Internet years, so the above is not anything of any particular unlikelihood.

Meanwhile, it's not that it's really important. It's that it can be very surprising to the folks actually using the service. Please scroll up a few comments, read what the fuck I actually wrote, and try to understand that I'm really not biased in this conversation (having rolled my own dynamic DNS for a long, long time -- because I can): I'm just attempting to raise the point that some folks who keep track of things to the best of their own technical, cognitive, and organizational abilities will be legitimately surprised by this move.

Maybe it's a rather meek point, but it is only what it is, and my intent is no greater or lesser than exactly that.

Re:Free isn't cheap enough?

[bill_mcgonigle]

So what if Joe had Localgeek work the Kung-Fu more than five years ago, and switched ISPs less than five years ago. What then? Does that make my argument "not an issue"? Why, or why not?

Then his DynDNS service would have stopped working about five years ago. But first he would have gotten an e-mail at that point warning him of impending deletion (I did for a few months before dd-wrt got a fix in, and so I logged into their website each time and clicked the 'refresh' button).

If his gear survived that period five years ago, then this policy they implemented last year would not have affected him at all.

Switching ISP's doesn't matter - if he's not renewing his 'lease' monthly, if his IP is stable or not, he'd have lost his host already.

read what the fuck I actually wrote, and try to understand that I'm really not biased in this conversation

I didn't suggest that you were - merely pointed out an error in your reasoning. Nothing more, nothing less. I assumed you wanted to have a solid argument.

some folks who keep track of things to the best of their own technical, cognitive, and organizational abilities will be legitimately surprised by this move.

No doubt, but what else is DynDNS to do? Offer a free service once and then commit to keeping it running forever without any opportunity for change? If forever isn't reasonable, is it a century, or a score, or a decade?

Re:Free isn't cheap enough?

[adolf]

I really don't care if the argument is solid and bullet-proof: It's still a realistic scenario, especially if one considers the human (error-prone) aspect of it and the resultant derivatives.

While I created it as a fiction, I've seen similar things happen first-hand in the real world more than once.

And it's just one scenario. There are are also real-world scenarios resulting in honest end-user surprise that I simply do not care to elucidate, and am simply unwilling to generalize.

I've currently got better things to do (like pay attention to the lovely ale in front of me) than argue about a free service which may have recently become annoying for some folks whose Kung-Fu is lacking.

Re:Free isn't cheap enough?

[the_B0fh]

A free service got changed. Life goes on. Go back to your ale.

Check your facts

[DragonHawk]

DynDNS providing a free service most people are locked in to using them even if they now have to pay.

Ah, no, they won't. The worst that can happen is, if someone can't keep their name registered, despite having a whole month to do so, with warning emails, they *might* have to switch to a *different* but *still free* name. (If they happened to choose one of the names which are still free, not even that.)

Their free service harmed competition and now they're reaping the rewards.

Dyn wasn't the first free DNS provider. Granite Canyon was around before them, if nothing else. And there have certainly been other free contemporary providers. So that's not true, either.

Entitlement?

[DragonHawk]

If you offer a free service, and then take it away in an attempt to monetize your service, of course users are going to get upset.

What are you going to do, stop paying them?

Dyn's attitude seems pretty straight forward:
1. As long as you keep your free account current, they'll continue giving you service for free.
2. If you let that account lapse, you may have to choose a different name, but they'll still give you service for free
3. You are, of course, welcome to go elsewhere, and stop using their free service

I don't see a sense of entitlement there.

Still free

[DragonHawk]

I gave them money so they'd stay free. They didn't stay free.

They still offer free service, just with a more limited selection of parent domain names. And only if you let your free account lapse.

I don't know how much money you've given them, either, but if it was like the parent -- $10 a decade ago -- well, $1/year is a pretty good price.

TANSTAAFL

[DragonHawk]

Wow, you sure do like to froth at the mouth. *and* *stuff*

Touche. Too many comments from people bitching that free wasn't cheap enough.

He neglected to retain Localgeek with an ongoing service contract for maintenance on his $50 router

Closest to that, actually.

I suppose Joe also buys a car, doesn't read the manual, and is surprised when the engine seizes because he never had the oil changed. After all, his car Kung-Fu is very weak.

Joe is also likely surprised that buying tons of stuff on his credit card, carrying a balance, and being late on payments means he's getting high interest rates on his car loan. Turns out, his money Kung-Fu is very weak.

Joe got hooked up with a cheap crap solution and it performed like cheap crap. This should not be surprising.

There's this concept that you don't get something for nothing. It's actually encoded into the universe as the second law of thermodynamics. It's probably the single most involute rule known to human understanding. Joe might want to learn about it. His life will be a lot less painful.

(!received) != (!sent)

[DragonHawk]

It will only stop working if *your* stuff stops working. And they'll email you telling you your free account is going to expire before it goes.

Not necessarily. I never received an e-mail telling me that my host name was expiring.

Note that "you never received" does not mean they didn't send it. The message prolly ended up in your spam folder. I know that's where the one they sent me ended up, when I lost the name I had been using for a few years. Of course, I only found that out once it was too late and I went and looked in the spam folder.

Come to think of it, I suppose I could have tried contacting them to explain what happened. Maybe they would have forgiven me. But I just shrugged and picked a different parent domain.