New user

[Mathias Körber]

> I am a new user and I was wondering if the following scenario is
> possible. Can i set up my home machine (cable modem using @home
> service) to have it's own domain name. I dont own a domain but heard =
that
> i could set it up to use one of the free dns services to get my name. =
I am
> currently using the service to rediriect to my machine, but they are =
too
> unreliable and are down quite often. I am unfamiliar with bind and am =
not
> quite sure how to set this up (if it is possible). I have read the DNS
> How-to but my scenario seems out of the realm of what it covers.=20

I am not familiar with @Home, but if they gave you a fixed IP address, =
there should
be no problem at all.

If @Home assignes only dynamic IP addresses (and somehow prohibits =
renewal of
IP address leases for long durations), you have the basic problem that =
the DNS
would need to reflect your current IP address.

DNS has allowed for dynamic updates for a while, but what is currently =
missing
is the security for dynamic updates. Thus "normal" DNS provider would =
most likely
no be able to provide that service.

There are solutions to this

	a) As nameservers themselves need to have fixed IP addresses, you most =
likely
	    will need someone to operate the nameservice for you.

	b) There are some DNS providers which=20
		- operate nameservers for you=20
		- and (more importantly) allow you to register your currently assigned
		  IP address each time it changes. Most have proprietary tools for =
this,
		  or you'd need to access a webpage to do this.

	One organization providing this seems to be www.dyndns.org. There are =
others. I have
	not used any one of these and cannot make recommendations on these. I =
found this
	by performing a www.ggogle.com search.

I hope this helps..

Mathias