What is DDNS (Dynamic Domain Name System)?

What is DDNS (Dynamic Domain Name System)?

So that's what we're going to talk about in this article.

DDNS stands for Dynamic Domain Name System

I previously did a article where I talked about DNS. 
If you're not familiar with what DNS does, I highly recommend that you read that article also.

In this article I'm going to talk about Dynamic DNS. 
So just as a refresher as to what DNS does. 
If you type in a web address in your web browser, DNS is what transforms that domain name to an IP address.

For example when you type in youtube.com in your web browser. 
The DNS server will search through its database to find a matching IP address for that domain name.
When it finds the IP, it'll transform that domain name to the IP address of the youtube web server in a DNS database.
A domain name such as youtube.com is mapped or joined to an IP address and that IP address must not change in other words it must be a Static IP. 
If youtube's IP address changes to a new IP address people will not be able to access youtube's website because youtube.com is still joined to the old IP address. 
So if the IP address does change, DNS will update their database with the new IP address for youtube.com so people can find youtube. 
Now this may not sound like a big deal.

However the problem is that it could take up to 24 hours for DNS to update their database with the new IP and that is a problem because that means that youtube will lose up to 24 hours worth of business until DNS does the update and this is the main reason why websites organizations and companies use Static IP addresses and not Dynamic IP addresses.

DNS is used with Static IP addresses but Dynamic DNS is used with Dynamic IP. 
Versus a dynamic IP address is where an IP address gets an IP from a DHCP server therefore the IP address changes periodically. 
Dynamic DNS is a service that allows you to access devices that are in your home such as a computer, router or security camera and you can access them from anywhere in the world even if your IP address changes Dynamic.
DNS is mainly used in homes because internet service that are used in homes are given a Dynamic IP and not a Static IP.

Let's do an example, 
Let's say you at work and then you wanted to access your home computer using Microsoft Remote Desktop. 
so you would open up the Remote Desktop service from your work computer and then you would type in the IP address for your home and then you would type the password and then you're connected. 
Here you already knew what the IP address was for your home because you either wrote it down or maybe you memorized it. 
However since you have a home account with your internet service provider, your IP address is dynamic and it will change periodically and if it changes without you knowing about it, the next time that you want to remote access your home computer you will not be able to because you're typing in your old IP address and not your updated one.

So this is where Dynamic DNS comes in, 
Dynamic DNS allows you to access your home computer even if your IP address changes.
It allows you to create a custom hostname such as myhomepcddns.org or whatever and then you can link that hostname to your computer. 
If your home IP address does change Dynamic DNS will update the new IP address and map it to your custom hostname automatically.
Dynamic DNS will ensure that you will always have access to your home computer even if your IP address changes.

For example, 
Now let's say you wanted to access your home computer again but instead of typing your home's IP address you were typing your custom hostname that you created with Dynamic DNS, so you would type in myhomepcddns.org and then you'll be connected.
Now no matter how many times your IP address changes it doesn't matter because whenever you want to access a device in your home you will always use your custom host name instead of the IP address and Dynamic DNS. 
we'll always make sure that the correct IP address is mapped to your custom host name. 

If you're interested in getting a dynamic DNS service there are several vendors that you can choose from with some you have to pay but some are also free. 
So I'll put links of some of them below here of this article.

Some Dynamic DNS Service Provider Links:

https://www.noip.com/
https://dyn.com/
https://www.duckdns.org/