I recently found out that you can get up to 3 free .eu.cc domain from GNAME, which also claims that you can renew for free when its within 90 days of expiring. So I got one to check it out.
Obviously, the next step is making one of my local machines act as the target destination for any queries to the address, so it becomes accessible for the wider web. I’m not entirely sure, however, what to configure on GNAME (there’s the option to setup A and AAAA records, which I suppose I should just point to my IP, but there’s also CNAME, TXT, NS, SRV and what configurations/programs my local server (rPi 3) needs to have running besides a webserver (Apache2 or Nginx)
My intent is to have it run a single-user fediverse server, possibly friendica, as it seems to have the best support for seeing all sorts of APub posts. If that proves too heavy for my old pi, I’ll try one of the lightweight APub alternatives
I know I’ll also need to do some configurations on my router, so I’d appreciate help on this, too.
Don’t run services like these on a free domain. Get a very cheap domain from almost any provider. These free ones often try to get you to buy their domain name for outrageous prices with tricks and footnotes.
“premium” .eu.cc domains go for 10 dollars from them. The ones they let people have for free are less than 2 USD for registration and yearly renewal. I’m willing to lose these domains if they try to charge for it
Not trying to rain on your parade at all. However, if you have to pay to register and a yearly renewal, then it’s not really free. I’ve never heard of GNAME, which is neither here nor there, but I went and checked it out. One of the things that stood out to me as I had to adjust my ad blocker to visit the site is that they are using baidu.com. So, right off the bat, that’s a red flag in my mind. Not saying that GNAME is doing anything nefarious, but, I’d proceed with caution.
Baidu is kind of the Chinese equivalent of Google. GNAME is a Singapore registrar so it would probably make sense to use Baidu.
I’m neither encouraging or discouraging, just informing. Additionally, there are some rather sketch reviews dealing with GNAME. One man’s paradise is another’s prison, so be informed and make your decisions based on that information and whether that fits into your threat model profile.
Just live with a terrible name and it will keep being free. I’ve had my mooo.com subdomains for years.
that is actually not terrible at all ^
Worth noting that FreeDNS domains can be a mixed bag. Anybody can add or remove the base domains at any time because they’re lended freely. The owner can also arbitrarily decide to delete your subdomain, or reserve it for themselves, or even hijack its use, its TLS certs etc.
The top 7 domains listed there (including
mooo.com) as owned by “josh” are somewhat better than the others because Josh is the owner of FreeDNS. So those domains will be around for as long as FreeDNS will, and you know Josh is not gonna hijack your subdomain. But be wary of using any other domain there (or putting your own domain up for use).This is all true.
However, I’ve had my subdomains since 2008 and never had any kind of issue, so I can vouch for freedns.
They’re an emblem of the spirit of what the internet should be.