Dynamic DNS

Dynamic DNS enables mapping of a dynamic IP to a fixed domain name. This is especially useful if you connect using ADSL services such as those of Tata Indicom, Airtel or BSNL as they provide a dynamic public IP every time you connect to the Internet. A public IP is a IP to identify the machine in the Internet (in contrast to private IP which is limited to intranets). Again both public IP and private IP can each be either static or dynamic.

While having a static public IP makes it easy to access your server on the Internet, static public IPs are costly. But using dynamic dns service, we can map a fixed domain name to a dynamic IP thereby making the server accessible just as in the previous case. Some of the services which offer free dynamic dns support are:

While the first two services DynDns and No-IP are more popular, please note that the free version of their services enables mapping of only certain fixed sub-domains. If you want to map your own custom domain to a dynamic IP, then you shall have to purchase their premium service.

But the last service zoneedit offers even this custom domain name mapping for free. It also has a very extensive DNS records management tool. The only limit is the maximum number of free zones you can add to their system is limited to five (even if you add and delete one zone you lose one credit and are only left with the ability to add four more zones). But for individuals and SOHO, this should be more than enough.