Unlimited gTLDs?

  • June 30, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently approved the future use of unlimited gTLDs (Generic Top Level Domain’s).  There are a total of 22 gTLDs. These domains range from: .com to .org to .net, but starting in January 2012, that list of 22 domains, will soon expand to a limitless number! Anything you can dream up will be able to be a gTLD.

So, what do unlimited gTLDs for businesses with websites online? It means that things may get a bit interesting and expensive… The top advice that owners of businesses with an online presence hear is protect your domain(s) from possible cyber squatters.  So, if you own yourbusiness.com, you should probably own yourbusiness.net, .org, .biz, and any common misspellings of your domain name, and every possible variation (within your budget) so your customers don’t mistype your web address and end up at a website that is not owned by you.  So, with limitless TLDs when would you know to stop buying domains? Until you go broke, I guess….

Which brings me to my next point, Will everyone be able to register any top level domain?

Yes, but at a very, very HIGH price.  The application fee for the domain will be $185,000 and the yearly domain fee will be $25,000.  For major online players, that is chump change, but for small online businesses, that is an astronomical price for a domain.  So, will everyone have a custom domain? No, but just knowing that you can is pretty cool.

No-IP’s IPv6 Implementation Progress Report

  • June 14, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

A few days after World IPv6 Day (June 8th) proved that the internet is ready for IPv6 integration, we would like to give you an update as to where we are in our implementation progress here at No-IP.

Our engineers have been working hard on implementation and the process is moving right along. We have already implemented an interface for our Plus customers to add AAAA records (quad-A records) to their domain and one of our name servers is currently answering IPv6 requests.

We plan to have more implemented later in the year and we will continue to focus on making IPv6 more integrated with our services. We had planned on participating in World IPv6 Day, but unfortunately, we ran into some issues with a data center migration and peering with the proper bandwidth providers. These set backs further reiterate how many hurdles there are in order to have true IPv6 connectivity.

Thanks again for choosing No-IP!

Questions or comments about IPv6 connectivity? Leave them below!

Go Phish! Top Tips on Protecting Yourself From Phishing

  • June 8, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Phishing scams are everywhere and are growing at an astounding pace. According to Webopedia.com the definition of phishing is “the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.”

The most common form of phishing is an email that requests for you to verify, update or confirm something for an account. Oftentimes, the email is accompanied by an official logo of a company with all links contained in the email looking like they are from the official company.

The email will request for information like your login name, password or even your social security number.  Emails with such requests should never be taken seriously, companies and financial institutions would never request such information via email.

So, how do you distinguish an email from an illegitimate source from an email from a verified, official source?

1.Let’s face it, sometimes scammers aren’t the “brightest crayons in the box,” therefore spelling and grammar errors often occur in phishing emails.

2. If an email asks for usernames, passwords or other sensitive information, chances are, the email is phishing.  Companies will never ask for sensitive information like this via email.

3. Check the links in the email. Scroll your mouse pointer of the links in the emails, but be careful not to click them.  Notice in the bottom gray bar of your browser that it will have a link.  This link is where the link will actually go to.  Just because the link says www.ourcompany.com does NOT mean it will be directed there.  You can also do the same thing for images that act like links, again, just be careful not to click on the before you know if the email is phishing or not. No matter how legit links look, ALWAYS type the link directly into your web browser.

4. After typing the link into your browser, if the page that requests for you to log in or enter other sensitive information, be sure that the page is a secure page.  You can verify this by confirming that the address in the address bar has an https, not just http.

In the unfortunate case that you happen to fall victim to a phishing scam and have given away your sensitive information, notify the companies that you have the accounts with ASAP. Also, even if you do not fall victim to a phishing email, contact the company immediately and let them know that you have received a fraudulent email.  Many companies have areas on their website where you can submit the claim to, or an email address that you can forward the email to.

No-IP Managed Mail offers superb protection against spam and phishing attempts with our acclaimed spam engine and extensive RBL lists. We even have our No-IP Anti-SPAM ECR which takes your spam protection one step further by requiring unauthorized senders of email to respond to an authorization email.

Questions or comments about phishing? Leave them below!

World IPv6 Day is June 8th, Are You Ready?

  • May 26, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

In an earlier post, we talked about the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 protocol.  This transition is a necessary one considering the pace that the internet has been growing at during the past 10 years.  When IPv4 was created, it was built to support 4 billion unique IP addresses, but with everyone (and their mom and grandma) owning a smart phone, iPad, computer or other internet ready device, (I read that even light bulbs will have an IP address in the future!) that is just simply not enough IP addresses.

IPv6 will support 2 to the 128th power or, wait for it…… approximately 340 undecillion addresses, UNDECILLION, really?! That’s a 1 followed by 36 zeroes. Hopefully, this will be enough IP addresses to hold us over for a few more years.

World IPv6 day, hosted by the Internet Society is a test flight day of IPv6 protocol. On June 8th, all participating organizations including Facebook, Google and Yahoo! will be hosting their content over IPv6 for 24 hours. The ultimate goal of the day is to motivate organizations to prepare for the transition to IPv6 as IPv4 is phased out.  Is your ISP ready for the transition to IPv6?

What do you have to do to make sure you are compliant? Nothing really, except stay current with operating system updates and maybe update the software on your router.

You can test your IPv6 compatibility here: or you can check out a cool diagram about IPv6 here.

Questions or Comments? Leave them below!

Got Game? How to Host Your Own Game Server with No-IP

  • May 19, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

For anyone who plays video games, you are aware of the advantages of running your own game server, (not to mention how cool it will make you among your friends) but you may not know how easy it actually is.  Hosting your own video game server isn’t as daunting of a task as it may sound.  Follow these simple instructions and get started today!

1. If you haven’t already, create and activate a No-IP account.
2. Add a Host to your account

Now you’re ready to fill in the details of your new hostname. Here are the steps to deal with the items on this screen:

3. Fill in the Hostname: box with a name of your choosing. It can be anything you like. If you choose a name that’s already in use, an error will be generated and you can then try a different hostname. Since hostnames are unique per domain, you can try using the same hostname and just select a different domain from the dropdown box below to see if that combination is available.

4. Select an available domain from the dropdown box. Note that certain domains are reserved for No-IP Enhanced customers only.

5. Choose the the Host Type. The default choice, DNS Host A, is usually the correct one. Do not choose any of the other host types unless you’re trying to solve a particular problem that a DNS A record won’t accommodate. If your ISP blocks Port 80 for example, and you’re trying to run a webserver or other service on port 80, then you can choose Port 80 Redirect (at that point you’ll be asked to specify the port to use for the redirection).

6. In the field marked IP Address: you should already see your current IP address. If you wish to set the IP address of the host to be somewhere other than your current location, you can enter that address now.

7. When you have filled in the information for your new hostname, simply click the “Create Host” button at the bottom of the page to save it.

8. Download the No-IP Dynamic Update Client. (If your ISP provides you with a static IP address, you can skip this step)

9. If you use a router to connect to the internet and/or have a firewall in place on your computer, you will need to make sure that it is configured to direct the appropriate traffic from the internet into the destination machine on your network. This is done using a router function called Port Forwarding. You can use any port or whatever is specified by the game software. Just be sure that the ports match at the firewall/router. You can visit PortForward.com for step-by-step guides on port forwarding for your specific router.

10. Next, verify that your router and firewall are setup correctly, you can visit our website at www.canyouseeme.org.

11. You’re Done! As long as the port is visible and your hostname resolves back to your network you should be ready to have your friends join you online to play your favorite video game!

It is important to note that depending on which game you are playing, it will either ask for the hostname and port separately, or it will just ask for the host. You may have to have your friends connect as host.domain.com:portnumber

If you run into trouble, be sure to check our Online Support Guides for helpful information, or leave your questions and comments below!

Options, Can Ya Dig it?

  • May 16, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

There are so many things that you can use Dig for! We are going to show you some of the options you can use to make your queries a little easier to digest.

+short
 Pretty self-explanatory, by adding this to the end of a query, you will only receive the information that you asked for in your answer. So, if you want to know just the MX records of a domain, type the following query into your terminal

dig no-ip.com MX +short

or the NS records
dig no-ip.com NS +short

or just the IP address
dig no-ip.com +short

or the text records
dig no-ip.com TXT +short

+noall +answer or +noall +authority

+noall +answer or +noall +authority will help you get the answers you want, without making your answer as short as +short. You can use +noall +answer or +noall +authority
dig no-ip.com MX +noall +answer
or
dig no-ip.com MX +noall +authority
or  dig no-ip.com (whatever record you are looking for) +noall +answer / +noall +authority

+trace
+trace lists all of the servers the request goes to/through in order to get an answer. Without it, you will just get the answer.
dig google.com +trace

+nssearch
+nssearch will list all of the SOA (start of authority) records of a domain
dig google.com +nssearch

Want to know all of the options?

dig -h will give you the complete list!

Questions or comments? Leave them below!

Best Practices: The Top 4 Ways to Protect a Domain Name

  • May 4, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

1. Register Your Domain As Private: When you register your domain name you need to provide valid information that will appear in the Whois database. This is mandatory, but who wants the entire world to know their email address and phone number?  Private Registration sets up a proxy where your domain registrar will handle the annoying calls and spam email and forward you the good stuff.  We offer Private Registration for only $9.95 a year, that’s only 83 cents a month!  My privacy is worth 83 cents, is yours?

2.Register Your Domain Under Your Name When you first decide that you need a website for your company, you will probably hire a web developer.  The web developer often registers the domain name for the site as part of their services.  Sometimes, the web developer will register the site in there own name, which can lead to many problems.  If the site is not registered in your name, the person it is registered under has the ability to take down your entire site with the click of a button.  Also, if the site is registered to someone other than you, they will be the ones receiving notice that the domain is expiring, which brings me to point number three.

3. Renew Your Domain On Time The easiest way to combat this issue is to set up your domain to Auto Renew.  If you don’t want to set up Auto Renew, designate a person in your company that is soley in charge of the domains of your company (this way, you will have someone that you can easily blame when they aren’t renewed in time), or set up an ICal Reminder or some other sort of notification so you are aware when your domain is expiring.  If you let your renewal lapse, your domain name can be bought by someone else (your competitor) and it may potenitally be lost forever, unless you are willing to pay a hefty sum for it. According to The Huffington Post, the most expensive domain ever sold was Sex.com and it sold for the low, low cost of 13 million dollars. If your budget isn’t quite that large, don’t forget to renew on time.

4. Keep Your Contact Information Up To Date Point four builds on point three, remember to keep your contact information up to date with your registrar.  If your registrar is sending you expiration emails, but that email is no longer active, your domain registration could lapse unknowingly. You can check what email is on your domain by using Whois.

Do you know any other tips on how to protect your Domain Name? Share them below!

What are MX Records? Anatomy of a DNS Zone File – Part Three

  • April 29, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·
what-are-mx-records-noip

A mail exchange record or MX record is a type of record in a DNS zone file. MX records are responsible for specifying which mail server is in charge of receiving email messages on behalf of a domain. When you send an e-mail, your computer queries the DNS for the MX records of the recipient’s

Continue Reading

Want Email Without the Headache of Managing Your Own Mail Server?

  • April 14, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Managing a mail server isn’t for everyone and if you, like myself, are not so technically inclined, then you should definitely consider our POP3/IMAP service.  No-IP’s POP3/IMAP mail service gives you complete email service for your domain, without the headaches or the technical experience that is needed to run your own mail server.

The following are the pros of choosing our POP3/IMAP mail service versus running your own mail server:

1. Control email for your own domain without the cost or hassle of running your own server

2. No need to hire an internal resource to manage your server, with our POP3/IMAP service, all of the technical stuff is handled by us!

3. Travel a lot or work from home? With POP3/IMAP you can access your email anytime and anywhere with webmail!

4. RBL (Realtime Blackhole List) and virus scanning help avoid spam (no not the “meat” in a can) and junk mail

5. Secure back-up capabilities to ensure that none of your emails ever get lost

6. Full control and access to your account to allocate and control memory usage and add/remove users

So, what are you waiting for? Sign Up for our POP3/IMAP service today.  No-IP POP3/IMAP offers tiered accounts for every need, large and small! Questions or comments? Leave them below!

Dig Tutorial

  • April 12, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

First and foremost, what the heck is Dig? Dig is an acronym for “domain internet groper”.  Dig is a useful tool for webmasters and system administrators, it can be used to query DNS servers and fix DNS related issues.  Dig is a part of the BIND DNS software.

There are many beneficial and useful ways to use dig.  Do you ever find yourself needing to make changes to DNS records, but aren’t sure how to verify your changes?

Check out the following breakdown of a dig query.

Type the following dig query into your Terminal and follow along!

dig www.no-ip.com

This query will call on the A record for the domain name www.no-ip.com.

So, lets dive into this a little deeper and explain what each part of the response means…

The first two lines tell us the version of dig that is being used, in my case, i am using version 9.4.3-P3, the command line parameters (www.no-ip.com) and the query options (printcmd). The printcmd options means that the command section (the name of these first two lines) is printed. You can disable this response by using the option +nocmd.

; <<>> DiG 9.4.3-P3 <<>> www.no-ip.com
;; global options: printcmd

Next, dig tells you the response that it collected from the DNS server. The answer received was (opcode: QUERY) and that the response contains 1 part in the answer section, 5 parts in the authority section and 6 parts in the additional section. Just before those responses you will see “flags”.  Flags state certain things about the DNS server and its response.

-qr (query response) simply means this is a response to a query
-rd (recursion desired) means that the incoming query requested recursive  support
-ra (recursion available) means that the responding server supports recursive queries

;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 55423
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 5, ADDITIONAL: 6

The question section is next. This section just states what I queried, in this case, I queried the A record of www.no-ip.com and it is in the Internet class or IN.

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.no-ip.com.                       IN                  A

The answer section follows; it adds the IP address of www.no-ip.com, and it also names all of the NS records that are authoritative for the domain.

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.no-ip.com.    60          IN                  A              204.16.252.112
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
no-ip.com. 50531              IN                  NS             ns2.no-ip.com.
no-ip.com. 50531              IN                  NS             ns4.no-ip.com.
no-ip.com. 50531              IN                  NS             ns5.no-ip.com.
no-ip.com. 50531              IN                  NS             ns3.no-ip.com.
no-ip.com. 50531              IN                  NS             ns1.no-ip.com.

The additional section lists the IP addresses of all of the NS records, along with what type of record they are.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.no-ip.com. 7702             IN                  A            204.16.255.55
ns1.no-ip.com. 128              IN                  AAAA         2620:0:2e60::33
ns4.no-ip.com. 128              IN                  A            75.102.60.46
ns2.no-ip.com. 79306            IN                  A            204.16.254.6
ns5.no-ip.com. 79306            IN                  A            75.102.59.82
ns3.no-ip.com. 19260            IN                  A            204.16.253.33

The last section just gives stats about the query: how long it took, the IP address it was queried from and how large the message was.  You can disable this reply by using the +nostats option.

;; Query time: 48 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.1#53(192.168.1.1)
;; WHEN: Fri Apr  8 11:22:02 2011
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 245

Using dig can help you troubleshoot your DNS related issues.  How often do you use dig?

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