Another question wrt DynDNS...

[PeterB]

Thanks for those who helped me with this before...

Question I have now is, will DynDNS allow you to manage multiple dynamic hosts, such that one hostname points to one IP, and another hostname points to another?

(I'd think the answer to this is "yes", but I couldn't seem to find information on if there are limitations to this, e.g., they only allow you to do it for a limited number of IP's.)

[Seacrest]

I think if you want more hosts, you can just signup for new accounts with multi email addresses. But I could be wrong.

But if you're talking about multi-IPs on the LAN side, then that kind of thing would be handled by your router.

What exactly are you trying to do?

[PeterB]

Seacrest, I just logged into my account there, and it does seem to allow you to add multiple hosts... each with their own IP...

I am trying to "administrate" both my mother's and brother's machines via VNC, and it's useful to be able to have DynDNS set up so that I don't need to know their actual IP's to do VNC...

[Seacrest]

So there's your answer.

[PeterB]

Seacrest, I hope so. I see it allows you to set multiple hostnames each with their own IP's, BUT... it assumes that the machine you're using to log into is the one for which you want the IP associated with the new hostname. So that means I will need to be using my brother's machine (or otherwise know his IP) for this to work... and I assume that DynDNS somehow is keeping track of which IP (machine?) is to be associated with which hostname... I'm guessing that's done through the software you install on the machine, which is effectively "phoning home" to DynDNS to let them know what the IP is.

[Seacrest]

[quote PeterB]I'm guessing that's done through the software you install on the machine, which is effectively "phoning home" to DynDNS to let them know what the IP is.
Exactly.
What DD is doing is routing requests for xxx.dyndns.org to the IP you have set up in your account profile.
If the original IP you entered has changed, then DD's nameservers need to know this.
That's why there are the auto update clients.

[PeterB]

Seacrest, right... so presumably it's possible that an attempt to access the hostname might fail, if the client software hasn't updated the DD servers yet to let them know that the IP has changed. I seemed to recall reading somewhere that it updates like every hour or something?

At any rate, I'm assuming that DD knows which host is associated with which IP by the fact that you enter in the IP from the machine that you're doing, so that it links that software on that particular machine with that IP and hostname.

[Seacrest]

If the IP hasn't been updated, then yes, the lookup will 'fail.'
Fail, in the sense that the name will simply point to the host which now has the last recorded IP address.
The client checks every hour (I think), updates when there is a change.

[New.Dad]

how much does it cost? one account at DynDNS

[PeterB]

New.Dad, the dynamic IP redirect is free...