October 5, 2006
 at 8:29 pm
 in internet, software

In a previous entry, I invited my readers or any visitor to ask me a question via the Ask Me section above. I’ve gotten a few good questions. Most of them are about phpBB which I specifically asked not to be submitted. Some were about how to solve simple physics problems? Huh? What, do I look like a calculator? But regardless, I got a few that I think I’ll turn into an entry.

The first question is about static IP addresses from an ISP that only provides you with a dynamic IP address. If I’m gathering the question correctly, I’m assuming this person wants to setup a web server on their computer, but has no way to access it for any length of time due to their computer’s IP address changing every hour, or day, or week, depending on the ISP.

First, I should warn you that running a web server on your computer opens it up to potential security hazards unless you know what you’re doing or have some kind of firewall setup either on your router, or firewall software. And that said firewall software is properly configured, not just “I installed the disc, so it must be okay.” I won’t get into the specifics of that in this post, because it’s way too involved and there’s no one “correct” way to do it.

Sticking with the topic at hand, in order to get someone access to files on your computer via a web browser, you’ll need to have some static address in place. Most often, this won’t be in the form of an IP address, but an actual domain.

There are a few services out there that offer DNS redirecting services for free. My personal favorite, and the most popular, is No-IP. Basically, you sign up for a free account, choose the domain name you would like to use (or sub-domain rather), and then install a small program on to your computer. What this program does is (every 10 minutes or so), get the IP address for your computer and send that address to No-IP’s servers. So when anyone accesses the No-IP web address, it’ll be forwarded (and masked) to your current IP address, whatever it is at the time.

One other thing to consider as well is the port you’ll be using. No-IP is able to forward any port you wish to your computer (for example, I go to my-no-ip-domain.com:5900 to access the VNC server on port 5900 on my desktop at home). Most often, if your ISP doesn’t allow a static IP address, they’ll also block incoming traffic from ports 80 and 21 (HTTP and FTP respectively). In this case, you’d need to configure your web server software (Apache, IIS) to use a different port. I use 8090. And then you’ll need to access it from my-no-ip-domain.com:8090.

Simple? It really isn’t that hard to set up.

Good luck! Email me back if you need any more details! And keep the questions coming!

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