How to setup dynamic DNS using no-ip.com?

We all know dynamic DNS is useful why to access our home network from differnt part of the world in our last article. To setup dynamic DNS, one of the best providers was DynDNS, but they removed all their free plans in 2014. It's only $25 a year for their remote access plan, which is pretty cheap for the features you get, but it's still not free!

If you really plan to connect remotely a lot from different parts of the world and you want something very reliable, DynDNS is definitely worth paying for. However, there are several free options that do a pretty good job and will work just fine for most people. No-IP is the one of them.

The free dynamic DNS provided by no-ip includes up to 3 hostnames, dynamic DNS updates, limited domain & Port 80 redirects and web support. Having multiple hostnames is a nice feature in case you have multiple devices you want to remotely access and you want a different hostname for each device. The devices can also have different locations, so you could use one hostname to connect to a computer at home and another to connect to a computer at work.

Step 1: Create an Account - To get started, click on the Sign Up Now button and create your account. You'll be asked for one hostname and you can type it in or choose to create it later. Once you've filled in the required information and agreed to our Terms of Service, click the "Free Sign Up" button at the bottom of the page.

Step 2: Confirm Your Account - You'll get a confirmation email and once you log into the site, you'll be brought to the member area and a pop up will appear with the steps you have to take next.

Step 3: Add a Host or Domain to Your Account - When you registered for a No-IP account a hostname should have been created automatically. You will use this to connect to your server. But you can create another if you want.

(A hostname is used instead of your IP address whenever you want to connect to a service at your location. Hostnames take the form of hostname.domain.com. This means they are the same as names used in URLs to surf the web.)

Step 4: Making Your Host Dynamic - Now we have to deal with the dynamic IP. If you have a dynamic IP address, you'll need to downloads and install No-IP’s Dynamic Update Client (DUC). After installing the DUC, be sure to configure it with the email address and password that you use to login to this site.

As long as the No-IP software is properly configured and running, your hostname will always point to the dynamic IP address at your location, no matter when it changes. But, if you wish to not run a computer at all times then you can setup in your network router for Dynamic DNS updates.

Step 5: Configure Your Router - If you use a router to connect to the Internet then you can configure your router with dynamic DNS (if supported). Router will direct the appropriate traffic from the Internet into the destination machine on your network. This is done using a router function called Port Forwarding.

If you have completed the step above, then you can successfully access your local device using your host name. But, as we said earlier, no-ip isn't the only option for dynamic DNS. Here are a couple more dynamic DNS service providers like, DNSDynamic, DUCK DNS, ChangeIP etc.