Submitted 5 hours ago by Paddy66@lemmy.ml to selfhosted@lemmy.world
hi everyone,
I was just about to self-host a Ghost blog but then was warned that my ISP might change my external IP address at any time, so I would need to pay for a static IP address.
Is that true?
(I’d not seen much about that in stuff I’ve looked up so far about self hosting)
I selfhost my blog without a static IP. You just need Dynamic DNS.
Keep in mind that your outbound bandwidth might be different from your inbound. I get 300mbps in, but only 5mbps out. It’s not noticeable during normal Internet use, but as you start sharing content publicly, limited bandwidth becomes really noticeable.
Whether your ip changes frequently depends on your ISP, but it’s not necessary. My public IP changes about once a year, but I use my router to update my dns and make ally external services rely on DNS and not IP to connect.
You can also do this, look up “dynamic DNS”. You just need to register a DNS name (can be free) and set up the updates to make it accurate.
I could make this quick: Is your internet access behind a NAT? If yes: you’re gonna need a static IP.
Not necessarily, Cloudflare tunnels, headscale/tailscale will sort that issue out amongst several other ways
But how will a tailnet help for a blog? At some point, the https port needs to be open.
I was going to use Cloudflare to sort this, but I’m uncomfortable how big they are getting / lack of competition in that part of the market. So we looked at Pangolin as an alternative, but it’s a faff to self host.
Hence why we’re back at exposing it straight out the back of Nginx Proxy Manager.
My router says it has NAT enabled (in the WAN settings section - for the internet connection)
It’s not about your router. But rather if your ISP connects several households with the same IP.
Quick, but sadly incorrect
Care to explain what I got wrong?
Thank you for your replies everyone!
I’m looking into DDNS. Before I go with a provider, I notice that my router has this functionality built in. Should I use that?
(It’s an Asus RT-AX86U Pro - so fairly chunky in terms of spec)
(It’s an Asus RT-AX86U Pro - so fairly chunky in terms of spec)
I have your exact router make and model! I self host my own domain on my home network and make use of the built in DDNS.
I would suggest looking into Asus WRT Merlin Firmware, the custom firmware enables more functionality to your router.
Docker containers for
- Ghost
- Nginx Proxy Manager
When hosting a reverse proxy like Nginx, Traefik, SWAG, Pangolin, etc keep in mind you 80:80 and 443:443 ports need to be exposed to the host machine then you will forward those ports on your router. This will allow your reverse proxy to communicate with Lets Encrypt creating your SSL certificates Liz
That would be a good place to start. Which providers does it support?
Seconding this, it is very convenient if it supports a good provider. But it is better imo to use a good provider with a helper script on your server than to stick with your router defaults if they’re not that good.
It makes things easier, but you have options, such as:
As others have already commented, what you need is a Dynamic DNS service, where you register a subdomain, and setup a small program or script on your computer that pings the DDNS server every few minutes, that way you leave that running on the background, and if the program detects that the IP with the request changes, it will update the subdomain to point to it automatically.
If you want a recommendation, I have been using DuckDNS for years, and it has been pretty reliable.
You don’t need one, but it does make things easier.
What you can use is something like Dynamic DNS to update your DNS record if your IP ever changes.
Personally I would look at using a tunnel, something like Cloudflare tunnels (easy to setup, sorts dns out) but many here dislike Cloudflare for a lot of reasons. However the free plan allows you to get started, easily, and then once you are started and serving your blog you can look into other solutions, or failing that stay on Cloudflare. Other tunnels exist but if you have a domain, using cloudflare is the easiest imho to get started
You could also put it on a VPS and not worry about your local connection.
Kind of depends on how you want to access it, and how you want others to access it.
hperrin@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
As others have said, you can use dynamic DNS, but you also might have an IPv6 address that doesn’t change. Or maybe it does, you’ll have to check with your ISP. But that one can be set up as an AAAA record in your DNS.
Most ISPs support IPv6, but some don’t, so you might not be accessible to everyone without also having an A record.
sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 54 minutes ago
I recommend afraid.org, you get everything that you need for free, and they’re a cool project so someday you may like to do even more with them or send them a little donation.