Any DynamicDNS providers that support RINETD?

Christian Smith xmas at this.address.is.invalid
Sat Jan 31 15:16:46 UTC 2004


In article <bvef60$p5i$1 at sf1.isc.org>, "Mike" <mmills1969 at yahoo.com> 
wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I was wondering if anyone knows of any DynamicDNS providers (like
> dyndns.org) that also provides support for "rinetd" (port redirector)?  My
> ISP blocks incoming requests on port 80.  As I understand it, most (if not
> all) dynamic dns providers currently use "URL redirection" - i.e., modify
> the URL to add the non-standard port to the end.  The client browser then
> connects to the web server on that particular port.  I have a couple of
> concerns with this approach:  1) It doesn't look so nice having the
> non-standard port stuck on the end of the URL, and 2) Some corporate
> firewalls do not allow outbound traffic on ports other than 80 and 443 -
> thus, clients behind such a firewall would not be able to connect to my web
> site.
> 
> If I understand it correctly, with "rinetd" the browser would connect to
> port 80 on the dynamic dns service provider's hardware; rinetd would
> transparently "proxy" the requests to my web server running on a
> non-standard port.
> 
> Is my understanding above correct, and if so, any dynamic dns providers that
> support rinetd (or equivalent sort of port forwarding)?

I believe your understanding is not quite correct or at least not 
complete.

A company -could- conceivably do this but they would need to have:

1. a boatload of IP addresses since rinetd doesn't know anything about 
DNS or host names and would have no way of knowing where to redirect the 
connection other than based on the IP/port of the incoming connection.

2. massive bandwidth because every packet would go through their system 
twice, once on the way in from the remote web site and once on the way 
out to you.

You on the other hand would need to have a very large checkbook ;-)

A more logical solution would be for the company to run a reverse proxy 
server. This would obviate the need for the boatload of IP addresses and 
reduce the bandwidth requirement since the proxy server would probably 
do some caching. Your checkbook would still need to be fairly large 
since this would hardly be cheap.

I don't know of any companies providing such a service.

Yes, http redirects are inconvenient, ugly, messy, etc but at the same 
time they are fairly cheap.

-- 
Christian Smith


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