Using dynamic dns in lab

dmw

I am just starting out on this exam and am wondering if anyone has used dyndns.org in their simulated environments. I have a vmware lab setup and I was thinking it might be possible to simulate a vpn and rras situations using dyndns. This would be pretty much like a real setup. Anyone try this or any other setups using dyndns?

Slowhand

A friend of mine and I set up an RRAS server for the purpose of VPN access to a network, with the help of dyndns.org. It worked just fine, but the only drawback was that it took us a couple of hours to figure out that there was no way to test if the connection truly worked unless we were actually on the other side of the internet gateway. (So make sure you test the remote connection from an actual remote location.) Other than that, there are no real problems using services like dyndns.org to set up your remote access.

dmw

Cool. I will have to research it a little. Did you have a 2 nic server or just one. also what address did you use to access the server. Was it just the dyndns host you setup with the port # appended?

geekie

I used dyndns to access my home PC via Remote Desktop from work. It worked well, especially with the dynamic update client as my ISP only supplied dynamic addresses.

Had to put a stop to it though when I got my electricity bill through. Had the shock of my life

Now looking for a free WOL solution!

Slowhand

dmw wrote:

Cool. I will have to research it a little. Did you have a 2 nic server or just one. also what address did you use to access the server. Was it just the dyndns host you setup with the port # appended?

Since we were using RRAS to receive the incoming VPN connection, we used two NICs in that particular server. We simply set up the dyndns software to send all incoming requests to the IP address of the NIC designated by RRAS, and configured the account on dyndns.org with the proper address information. Though, I do know that a lot of home VPN routers, such as Netgear and Linksys will have built-in connection software for dyndns, among others, so you don't have to use RRAS.

As far as the setup: yes, it was the dyndns software installed on the server box that took care of the connection and the dynamic updating with the dyndns.org site. Setting up RRAS is done as you'd normally do, as if you had a static IP, then you let dyndns take care of the rest.

dmw

Thanks for the info. I do have a Linksys router that supports dyndns but I will probably try it both ways for experience.

Another question I Have is if I have a home LAN with multiple computers how do you direct dns to only the one server on the home lan?

Danman32

All dynamic DNS does is put a name to an IP so it is easier to remember. The only requirement is that the IP host has to 'phone home' to the dynamic DNS service periodically so it can update to the correct IP address.

So, if it works by IP, it will work as well with dynamic DNS.

Slowhand

dmw wrote:

Another question I Have is if I have a home LAN with multiple computers how do you direct dns to only the one server on the home lan?

If you're setting up RRAS instead of going through the router, you'll have to set up forwarding on the router to automatically forward requests for the dns name to the proper IP address and port of the RRAS machine.

dmw

Back again 

Well I got this working through and I can get to test websites and ftp sites using dyndns. I have my server running rras behind a linksys router. I can't get a vpn connection going. When connected to the web site or ftp I use ftp:// or http:// with the address:port and it works. I tried this several ways for the vpn - https:// and without, using 1721 and 1723 as the port but can't get it to connect. It pretty much errors out immediately.

I dont have a firewall currently running and I have the ports open on the router.

The server is connected to the net via wireless and I have it connected to another machine via a hub . The server is running NAT for the other machine and both have static IP's. I don't have a reason for this just a way to get these to machine on the net as they share a kvm switch but I only have one wireless card. I can remove the NAT no problem if need be.

The machine I am testing the vpn from is coming from the outside it is not local to this network.

Slowhand

You might have to set up a VPN-specific fowarder on the Linksys router, forwarding all requests for the VPN connection and ports to the RRAS machine. It'll probably have to be persistent forwarding, as application-triggered (conditional) forwarding doesn't always do the trick.

dmw

The router is currently forwarding ports 1721 and 1723 to that servers internal private IP.

dmw

Slowhand,

You had this setup for vpn can you let me know what port you were specifying to access through dyndns and did you have to prefix the address with https or just the address:port?

blackzone

dyndns is similar to no-ip.com?

How does the two compare?

Danman32

Funny think happened to me. I shot myself in the foot after I posted last week. I RDP'd to my home machine, then connected to my router's management web interface to see if it supported dynamic DNS services. Apparently it doesn't. But in doing my probing, I inadvertently set my router's WAN interface to a bad static address. Since I was remoting in, I cut myself off with no hope of fixing it until I got home.

And I even tried to abort having the change take hold, but it took anyway.