One perk that someone told me about is that you can use your domain to get around not having a static IP (because the DNS will compensate).
If I were to get a Cloudflare domain name then what would be some other pros and cons?
- good-looking domains instead of IPs
- tons of subdomains instead of ports
- universally recognized TLS certs via Let’s Encrypt. DNS challenges are the way to go - you don’t even have to expose your HTTP server
- dynamic DNS, again available via API
inbox@yourdomain.com(better not to self-host, but to use an email provider)
universally recognized TLS certs via Let’s Encrypt. DNS challenges are the way to go - you don’t even have to expose your HTTP server
I use DNS challenges for mine as well, but I have been manually renewing my cert every time. Is there a way to automate letsencrypt/cerbot renewal when you use DNS challenges?
Wanted to expand on your custom domain for an email since this is something I do to get a more professional email address to put on my resume. A lot of DNS services like Cloudflare or NameCheap will actually let you create email addresses off of your custom domain that will just forward to a different email of your choosing, and generally free or very very cheap as well. If you want to be able to actually send emails from your custom domain, you can setup a Google Workspace account with a single seat for $5 a month and have a fully hosted email solution that uses your custom domain name.
better to use zoho. Zoho mails provides you 5 free custom email for free and zeptomail allows you to send k emails for 1 dollars
Can also do this with iCloud+ for 99 cents a month.
tons of subdomains instead of ports
Just to be clear for OP, that applies only for protocols that “support DNS” as in, they send the DNS in the protocol.
The one I have in mind: http(s) and emails.
Games, FTP and most of the protocols don’t.
Still a bit wrong. You can use things like Portzilla and make it so that certain subdomains are for certain game servers.
it’s pretty sick. i got all my home services SSL terminated with subdomains that aren’t resolvable outside my network. I configured a nice ULA addresses doled out by my dhcp6 by modifying the ipv6 RA to solicit managed ipv6 dhcp and send updates to named so even my apple devices can reach out to them (apple devices tend to fallback to external DNS if AAAA dns records aren’t found)
> One perk that someone told me about is that you can use your domain to get around not having a static IP (because the DNS will compensate).
No this wont really help you with that. A domain name (‘A’ record in a DNS provider such as Cloudflaire) is simply a pointer to an IP address. If you configure this with a non-static address (e.g. your public IP provided by your ISP) then this will at somepoint change and therefore no longer resolve. You would then need to manually update the IP in the DNS record each time.
There are services you can run locally to automate this update (check on your router) called Dyanmic DNS. DDNS will basically call a configured endpoint to automate the change.
> If I were to get a Cloudflare domain name then what would be some other pros and cons?
Personally I set up an A record to point my domian `mydomain.com` to a local IP (19.168.1.x) which is running NGINX proxy manager. With a wildcard CNAME such as `*.mydomain.com` I can add all my local services in NPM with valid letsencrypt certificates.
Now I never need to use IP’s/ports as I can:
- Access all my local services via valid SSL certs
- Manage them in a single place (NGINX proxy manager)
- Use nice looking URL’s using subdomains (e.g `https://router.mydomain.com`)
- Same with email addresses. I can use `whatever-i-want@mydomain.com` - which I have configured in Cloudflare to forward to my primary gmail account (Just add a `MX` entry).
You’d need to implement Dynamic DNS to update the records. DNS alone won’t do that.
Correct. I used NOIP for years until I realized that 1) my IP address is static and 2) my home IP address was being exposed. (Pretty obvious I know but sometimes I am slow on the uptake 😃)
My solution was to get a $5 per month vps and reverse proxy and reverse ssh tunnels.
The $5 / month VPS ($60/year) was pretty much the cost of NOIP per year to use custom domains.
Might as well use a Cloudflare tunnel.
There are docker containers that auto update cloudflare a records for dynamic IP.
One benefit for me that wasn’t immediately apparent is a custom email, paired with something like proton mail and simple login I turned it into a catch all.
It’s fantastic. Company asks for a email, sure. Walmart@problematicpenguin.org. Now, I can sort anything that arrives to walmart@ right into the spam box. Doesn’t matter what address they’d send it from.
Fucking. Brilliant.
Does this work with Google Workspace/gmail? And how do you do it? If you’re at some new store say hshsb do you create the email before you go or while you’re there?
This. I’ve done this since 2003 (when I got my first custom domain + email) and I’ve discovered several forums, services and companies that have either sold their databases or (most probably) got hacked and never made it public.
Pro-tip: If you are going to give out the address face to face, they might not trust you or not understand when you tell them that your email address is theirCompanyName@yourdomain.org. I even had a store blatantly refusing to type that into their system. So, I started using ROT-13 to encode the company/service name, and just telling them the address is gurvePbzcnalAnzr@yourdomain.org. Nobody has ever asked why my email address was so unpronounceable.
I miss the days when you could just do johnsmith+walmart@gmail.com when signing up on a website, but now everyone either outright rejects it as invalid or parses it out.
It was useful because you could see who was selling your email address, but that exposed too many companies and was losing them $$$ so they patched it :(