Hi everyone,

a couple of friends and I have a Jellyfin server running which is exposed to the internet via a reverse-proxy and https by using a free dynDNS provider.

The setup is working fine besides the dynDNS provider. We constantly face connection issues, making the dynamic DNS functionality very unreliable.

So I started looking into possible solutions and one particular would be to buy an own domain which would only cost a few bucks each month. With this I could keep the current setup and would just need to change the domain (and possibly the SSL certificate). I found a provider over which I could buy (rent?) a domain and which also provides dynDNS functionality. But I am not too sure if I understood this correctly:

  • if I have an own domain, why would I need the additional dynDNS functionality? I would guess that I would just continue updating your server’s IP address to the domain name like we are doing now
  • can the provider over which I rent the domain with servers in my country actually see what our traffic is? Especially since we are streaming our movies etc.
  • is there a better way of obtaining and setting up your own domain also in terms of privacy and reliability than with a bigger company offering such services?

Thanks a lot for your feedback!

Edit: An important fact I forgot to add in my main post is that during these issues, the general server connection should be fine since it is located at a friends house and his internet connection is unaffected (e.g. we could still talk in Discord normally and he had no internet issues whatsoever)

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 hours ago

    Can you explain the connection issues? Dynamic dns services aren’t much different than a normal domain name.

    If the problem is with your ip address changing then you need to get a more permanent ip.

    In fact you can usually get a domain name from the dynamic dns provider and they can update it.

    A way around this is to use a service like Tailscale. Their ip address for your host won’t change. The downside is you need to be on von to access it. There might be other options.

    • dingleberrylover@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      The server is running at my friends house who has a fiber connection. When we face these connection issues, it does not necessarily mean that all of us cannot access Jellyfin but often times only a couple of us cannot access (same error as if you mistype a web-address, so it cannot resolve the domain name). During these periods of connection issues, the internet connection of my friend is working completely fine. I have a script running that constantly sends the current IP address to the dynDNS provider. I also looked into how often our ISP changes the IP address and it is not very often and not during these issues.