This week we had a problem with one of our two web hosts where they screwed up a virtual domain. Fortunately, their screw ups didn't affect any of our actual web sites because we manage our own DNS.

We manage our DNS through a company called No-Ip.



It is pretty cheap and they make it super easy to handle pretty much everything you'd could ever want to handle with your domain name(s).

Also, the TTL is really short with their servers, so any changes you make happen REALLY quickly. Changes seem to propagate in minutes, rather than hours or days.

In my experience, web hosts do a crappy job with DNS stuff and it can be a real pain to change something.

Going with someone like NO-IP is really convenient. Yes, you can do it yourself and run your own DNS servers, but DNS processes are historically insecure and get owned a lot. I'd rather not have to worry about managing it or the security issues.

We don't have any affiliation with NO-IP other than as a customer. We've been using them for over a year and haven't had any problems (I hope this doesn't jinx us).

I post this here because of our recent experience that made me realize how useful this service is, and I imagine DNS stuff is something that other MUD admins deal with on occasion.

We're huge fans of No-ip ourselves and use them for DNS services as well for monitoring connectivity to our servers remotely. We've got various systems monitoring performance of our servers, and they'll page and email us if something goes wrong, but if they're cut off from the net they can't do that, so we have No-ip monitoring our stuff as a backup. Again, I really can't say enough great things about the services No-ip provides.

--matt