A Website at Home? Yep, Even Without a Static IP!

#webdev #opensource #tutorial

It all started with a joke...

"You know, you could also host your site at home."

It's possible, yes. And I thought to myself: how could I do it... for FREE?

To make a site accessible from the internet, what do you need?

A server – in my case, it'll be my desktop.
A public IP – I have one, but it's dynamic (it changes).
Continuous uptime – and with the power cuts around here, we can forget about that.
A domain name – because sharing your IP address isn't very cool.

I'll handle finding solutions for points 1, 2, and 4.
As for point 3, I'll leave that to the power company (good luck, folks, I'm counting on you 😉).

Goal: Get a free domain name that automatically points to my public IP, even when it changes.

This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you how I discovered America and defeated Satan before stumbling upon the FreedomBox project, blah blah blah...

But let's be serious: today, I'm talking about GnuDIP, a DDNS service that FreedomBox introduced me to – and it's the real deal.

What is GnuDIP?

GnuDIP is a Dynamic DNS (DDNS) service.
It allows you to link a domain name to a changing IP address – typically what you have if you're with a standard ISP.

The public instance available at gnudip.datasystems24.net offers two free domains:

freedombox.rocks
sds-ip.de

And yes, it's 100% free.

Tutorial: Using GnuDIP to Get a Free Subdomain

Step 1: Create an Account

Go to https://gnudip.datasystems24.net
And sign up:

Step 2: Create a Subdomain

Hostname: choose a short, simple name with no special characters.
Domain: select sds-ip.de or freedombox.rocks.

Once registered, go back to the login page and sign in.

By default, the domain points to the IP you used to connect.

But you can change it manually:

Even Better: Automatically Update Your Public IP

If your IP changes regularly (as it does with many providers), GnuDIP offers a simple solution: the "Quick Login URL".

Just click on "Set quick login URL", copy the link, and use it in a small script that runs regularly, using cron for example.

A simple curl to this link will automatically update the domain's IP:


bash
curl "[https://gnudip.datasystems24.net/nic/update?username=...&password=...&hostname=](https://gnudip.datasystems24.net/nic/update?username=...&password=...&hostname=)..."