hi everyone,
I was just about to self-host a Ghost blog but then was warned that my ISP might change my external IP address at any time, so I would need to pay for a static IP address.
Is that true?
(I’d not seen much about that in stuff I’ve looked up so far about self hosting)
You must log in or register to comment.
As others have said, you can use dynamic DNS, but you also might have an IPv6 address that doesn’t change. Or maybe it does, you’ll have to check with your ISP. But that one can be set up as an AAAA record in your DNS.
Most ISPs support IPv6, but some don’t, so you might not be accessible to everyone without also having an A record.
I recommend afraid.org, you get everything that you need for free dynamic dns, and they’re a cool project so someday you may like to do even more with them or send them a little donation.
I started with noip first, and the monthly re-up was so annoying.
They are excellent
Seconded. Used their service for many years.
As others have already commented, what you need is a Dynamic DNS service, where you register a subdomain, and setup a small program or script on your computer that pings the DDNS server every few minutes, that way you leave that running on the background, and if the program detects that the IP with the request changes, it will update the subdomain to point to it automatically.
You could access the blog from the subdomain of the DDNS directly or if you get your own domain, you can point it to the DDNS.
If you want a recommendation, I have been using DuckDNS for years, and it has been pretty reliable.
There’s also FreeDNS. Their only ask is that you log into the account once every 6 months so they know you’re still using it.
Whether your ip changes frequently depends on your ISP, but it’s not necessary to have a static ip. My public IP changes about once a year, but I use my router to update my dns and make ally external services rely on DNS and not IP to connect.
You can also do this, look up “dynamic DNS”. You just need to register a DNS name (can be free) and set up the updates to make it accurate.
Thank you for your replies everyone!
I’m looking into DDNS. Before I go with a provider, I notice that my router has this functionality built in. Should I use that?
(It’s an Asus RT-AX86U Pro - so fairly chunky in terms of spec)
For reference, the set up is:
Docker containers for
- Ghost
- Nginx Proxy Manager
(It’s an Asus RT-AX86U Pro - so fairly chunky in terms of spec)
I have your exact router make and model! I self host my own server with a domain on my home network and make use of the built in DDNS feature.
My domain registrar is Cloudflare so I have to use a custom script for DDNS, if you’re in the same boat I can provide the script.
I would suggest looking into Asus WRT Merlin Firmware, the custom firmware enables more functionality to your router.
Docker containers for
- Ghost
- Nginx Proxy Manager
When hosting a reverse proxy like Nginx, Traefik, SWAG, Pangolin, etc keep in mind you 80:80 and 443:443 ports need to be exposed to the host machine then you will forward those ports on your router. This will allow your reverse proxy to communicate with Lets Encrypt generating and verifying your SSL certificates.
That would be a good place to start. Which providers does it support?
Seconding this, it is very convenient if your router supports a good provider. But it is better imo to use a good provider with a helper script on your server than to stick with your router defaults if they’re not that good.
Hope this helps:
Running a service like ddclient may give you more options at the cost of being more complicated.
You don’t need one, but it does make things easier.
What you can use is something like Dynamic DNS to update your DNS record if your IP ever changes.
Some of the other options are cloud flare tunnel or ddns that would give you static ip effect without static ip
Cloudflare Tunnel is a good fit to your use case. You only need a domain name to expose your web server via Cloudflare.
https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/connections/connect-networks/
I would stand up a VPS in a cloud provider
No, you don’t. Use Tailscale to expose your blog.
Wouldn’t that be just for me - in my Tailnet - rather than to the general public?
AFAIK Tailscale has an option to expose certain ports to the internet.
That doesn’t seem to be appropriate for a specific domain. Unless I’m reading it wrong.
We need to expose the Ghost blog on a specific subdomain of the domain we own ( blog.ourdomain.org )
doesn’t Tailscale Funnel assign a funky domain name rather than let you use your own?
I used tailscale and lightsail VPS from India. https://hsps.in/post/how-i-host-public-apps-using-tailscale/
Kind of depends on how you want to access it, and how you want others to access it.
You can use a ddns such as duckdns or host on github pages with jekyll or something
Surprised nobody has mentioned cloudflare ddns. If you registered your domain with cloudflare, you can use the api or qdm12’s (author of gluetun) ddns-updater to keep your A/AAAA records up to date.
You could also put it on a cloud system and not worry about your local connection.
