Assigning Domain Name to Home Server

JasonPDK

Member
I have a home server running debian with various services on it. I have a static IP from my ISP and am able to access my server via that. I'm wondering how would I go about assigning a domain name to this server?

Any help is appreciated,
Thanks.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
1) Register domain name
2) Either associate domain name with your own nameservers (there are free ones such as http://dns.he.net ) or a lot of providers already have their own name servers where you add the DNS records onto.
3) Add an A record for whateverurl.com toward that IP address.
4) After the DNS information propagates through the internet you should see it resolve from most nameservers to your IP.

If you wanted to go a step further and use things like SSL certificates just make sure the subdomain in the cert matches the one you set up in DNS.
 

Geoff

VIP Member
Just to expand on what beers said, you can purchase a domain name from a hosting company such as GoDaddy, which you would then modify the A record to point to the IP of your home server. GoDaddy has a guide that walks you through doing this on their hosting platform. The pricing is cheap, I think it's something like $5-$10/year.
 

WhoX

Active Member
Be careful with GoDaddy, they do steal domain names...personal experience. If you are going to check to see if a domain name is available, don't use GoDaddy's search engine.
 

Geoff

VIP Member
Be careful with GoDaddy, they do steal domain names...personal experience. If you are going to check to see if a domain name is available, don't use GoDaddy's search engine.
What do you mean they steal domain names? I've purchased several through there without any issues. The only thing I don't like is they spam your email and call you.
 

WhoX

Active Member
What do you mean they steal domain names? I've purchased several through there without any issues. The only thing I don't like is they spam your email and call you.

GoDaddy watches everything you search for when using their domain search engine. They are looking for premium domain names that haven't been registered yet. I used their search engine to check if a specific domain was taken, it wasn't, when I logged into my provider to register the domain it was gone, and strangely enough GoDaddy was the new owner.

If you google "godaddy stealing domains", you'll find quite a few similar complaints from other users.
 
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