Okay, I thought I had better share this little piece of wonder.

Like many of you, I have a cable modem / DSL / etc.... (But this following problem exists for ALL without a fixed IP address...)

Nice if you can get it, but there is the problem. My service provider gives me a dynamically assigned IP address.

One day its 40.2.202.11 and the next day its 22.66.110.4!

Remembering what it is is a chore.... And a problem since I run a number of services including ftp and OpenSSH on my machine so that I can access it from work and control it, send it files, and so forth.....

There is still a DNS entry, but it too changes each time I change IP, one day its PC101.ntl.co.uk or something and the next day its something different....

What I really need is a program that monitors my IP address for changes and automatically amends DNS entries accordingly with a hostname that I have chosen....

Of course, I toyed with the notion of running my own DNS server but I can't see that working in the greater lattice of the internet somehow.... I can't ask to join clydecache or something....

What I mean is, I want to be something like Phantasm66.mydomain.com regardless of what IP address my provider has allocated me today.....

I want to be able to do things like this:

ftp Phantasm66.mydomain.com ,

or

telnet Phantasm66.mydomain.com ,

or open terminal client to Phantasm66.mydomain.com ,

any time I like and not have to worry about what IP address I have today....

Enter DynSite for Windows

A handy little tool that does just that. Of course, I have to choose from a preset number of domain names, but the host name can be of my choosing to a point. And when my IP address changes, the DNS is dynamically updated.

http://noeld.com/dldynsite.htm

Works under near all Windows versions and works well. I found that, about 1-2 mins after installing, my chosen DNS name was active throughout a good portion of the internet, and there was indeed even a function that estimated how much of the internet would know my machine by this host name now.

Cheap, easy and simple! I can't believe I didn't find it before!

http://noeld.com/dldynsite.htm

Well worth a look. Its not free, and you will have to pay. But as a solution to a problem that's annoying many people with a broadband connection, its a good one.