What does dynamic global hostname do?

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Level 1

52 points

What does dynamic global hostname do?

What does dynamic global hostname do and how can it be accessed from outside my firewall.

I just (re) discovered the Dynamic Global Hostname setup on my current iPhone Airport Utility. 🙂I am able to specify Hostname, user and password which seem to be retained in the Airport 😁. It is a fifth generation APE.

I did not find this setup on my MAC. 😮

What is required to access the APE via this process? Do I need an external dynamic name server? The ones mentioned in 2008/9 are no longer functioning.

I want to set up my one web server on a disk connected to the APE.

How would I go about accessing this from and external and generic web browser?

Finally, where might I find documentation on this feature?

Thanks

Barry

iPhone 5, mountain lion APExtreme

Posted on Sep 23, 2013 9:46 AM

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Answer 1

bholtzkener Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 23, 2013 11:51 AM in response to Tesserax

Thanks.

A few more questions:

1 My ISP has not changed my IP address since I started using them. (six months).

If it never changes, would I need to arrange for a dynamic name server or could I just use my current IP?

and

2 How is the dynamic global host name different from using a dynamic DN server?

Thanks

Barr

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

158,562 points

Sep 23, 2013 10:52 AM in response to bholtzkener

What does dynamic global hostname do and how can it be accessed from outside my firewall.

A dynamic global hostname is a means to access your AirPort Extreme using a host name instead of an IP address. It is part of the DDNS (Dynamic DNS) service. It is mostly used where your ISP provides you with a dynamic Public IP address. This is typical for consumer-grade Internet service.

Since your Public IP address changes over time, it would be difficult to access your Extreme remotely unless you know what its newly-assigned IP address is. Thus DDNS come into play. With DDNS, you are assigned a host name from the DDNS provider. The service keeps track of your Public IP address changes so you only need to know your host name.

One such provider of service is DynDNS.

For example, to access your AirPort Extreme from the Internet, you would just do the following from your Mac:

OS X: Finder > Go > Connect to Server > Server Address: <your DynDNS Global Host Name>

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

158,562 points

Sep 23, 2013 12:08 PM in response to bholtzkener

1 My ISP has not changed my IP address since I started using them. (six months).

If it never changes, would I need to arrange for a dynamic name server or could I just use my current IP?

I would just use the IP address they provided you.

2 How is the dynamic global host name different from using a dynamic DN server?

DNS (Domain Name System), as you are probably already aware of, is the Internet's version of a phone book. It is primarily used to translate host name to IP addresses and vice versa.

A DNS server is one of the fundamental infrastructure pieces in a DNS. These servers are interlinked and basically define a path between the source and the destination over the Internet. DNS servers can be either remote from your network or internal as needed.

A global host name is a name used in place of a IP address that is reachable from the Internet. DNS servers store this relationship.

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