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?

The Anatomy of a DNS Zone File – Part Two: What are NS Records and Why Are They Important to DNS?

  • April 8, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

An NS record or (name server record) tells recursive name servers which name servers are authoritative for a zone.  Recursive name servers look at the NS records to work out who to ask next when resolving a name. You can have as many NS records as you would like in your zone file.   The

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Transfer Your Go Daddy Domain To Animal Friendly No-IP!

  • March 31, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

In lieu of recent activities of Bob Parsons, Go Daddy CEO, No-IP is proud to announce that no animals were hurt in the posting of this blog, or the querying of our servers. Have you seen the video? You can check it out here. It’s pretty gruesome, so if you have a weak stomach, don’t say I didn’t warn you…

No-IP loves animals! We love them so much that we are offering domain transfers from Go Daddy to No-IP for only $9.95!  So, what are you waiting for? Transfer your domain to animal friendly No-IP.com today! Enter Promo Code domain995 upon checkout!

Why Reliable DNS is Important To Your Business

  • March 23, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Imagine, it’s 8:05am on a Monday morning. You log in to your computer and open up your email client, you read through a couple of emails that you received over the weekend and then you decide to reply to one of them, you hit send and…. NOTHING. The email won’t go out! You frantically pick up your phone and dial your IT department.

Across the country, a potential client who found your web URL on your Facebook page or some other type of advertisement wants to visit your site and see what you have to offer.  They try to type your web URL into their web browser, and…. NOTHING. So, they do a quick Google search and find one of your competitors.  Your competitor’s site is working fine, so they spend their money on that site.

Do these scenarios sound like something you don’t ever want to happen? Well, you better make sure that you have reliable DNS.

DNS is essential for many reasons. When a customer wants to visit your website, they type your Fully Qualified Domain Name, www.yourbusiness.com, into their web browser.  Without DNS, your customers would have to remember the specific IP address (i.e. XX.XX.XX.XX) that your website is listed at.  This could be very difficult, especially if your website has more than one IP address that points to that specific URL.  IP addresses can vary across the globe.  The DNS does all the work by redirecting the users to the correct web address, and making sure they are reaching the site that is hosted nearest to them, thereby ensuring that your customers are connected to your site the fastest way they can be and that traffic is balanced across all of the servers.

The location of DNS servers is important in ensuring 100% uptime. We deploy name servers across the globe at geographically unique datacenters using different tier 1 bandwidth providers to ensure a natural disaster or connectivity outage does not disrupt our robust DNS network.

DNS helps direct your emails to the proper servers, redirect customers to the proper domain and ensures that they reach your site the fastest and best way that they can at all times, even if mother nature decides to rear her ugly head.

How has having reliable DNS helped you in the past?

Common Support Questions and Answers

  • March 18, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Common Support Questions

Q: I have No-IP Mail Reflector and a sender is blocked by the RBL I have selected, What should I do?
A: Reflector is configurable and will allow a person or domain to be added to an exception list.

Q: My monitoring system rolls over, but does not affect my host.
A: The host has not been configured. Disable the check, modify the host with your offline option and reenable the monitoring check.

Q: I am using a redirect and my host resolves to a strange IP.
A: This is correct. The first resolution is to a redirect server owned by No-IP, the second request is made by this server combining your IP:port_number.

Q: I purchased No-IP registration for $24.95, but whois says it is not registered.
A: It appears you have purchased DNS without registration. Contact No-IP directly.

Q: When I ping my hostname I get a “connection timed out” error, what’s up with that?
A: A ping request is a valid test for connectivity to a network, but not DNS resolution. So as long as you see that the name resolves to a number, DNS resolution is occurring.

Q: Am I able to get a static IP address?
A: No-IP does not offer static IP addresses, we provide you with a name that will resolve to your current IP address and can be kept updated through the use of our free software.

Q: What’s wrong with the DUC? I keep getting notices that my host will expire.
A: If your IP address does not change within 30 days, then the host is considered abandoned and removed from the account. The DUC checks for a NEW IP address, if the IP hasn’t changed, then no update is submitted. When you upgrade to Plus or Enhanced Managed DNS these notifications are disabled.

Questions, Concerns or Comments? Leave them below!

Having issues with your No-IP service that our Support Center doesn’t cover? Open a Support Request.

No-IP Referral Program

  • March 17, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Did you know about the No-IP Referral Program?

By referring your friends to No-IP you can earn points towards free No-IP Plus subscriptions. For every 3 friends that sign up for No-IP Plus or No-IP Squared you will receive a No-IP Plus subscription for free! It’s Easy! Check out the Referral Page for more information. How many friends have you referred to No-IP?

No-IP New Hire!

  • March 17, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

No-IP is excited to welcome our new hire, online marketing manager, Natalie Goguen. Natalie comes to us from the travel/hospitality industry where she was an online marketing manager.

“I’m excited to be a part of the No-IP team. I am looking forward to expanding our marketing efforts and further building the No-IP brand,” stated Natalie.

Welcome Natalie!

The Anatomy of a DNS Zone File: SOA Record

  • March 15, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Part ONE What is a Start of Authority (SOA) Record and What Does it Do? The first resource record in any Domain Name System (DNS) zone file is the Start of Authority (SOA) resource record. The SOA resource record is an essential part of the DNS zone file, it indicates the basic properties of the

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WordPress.com Hit By Major DDoS Attack!

  • March 3, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Early this morning, three of WordPress.com’s data centers were successfully taken down by a major DDoS attack. WordPress is describing it as the largest one in it’s history. The following is an excerpt from their blog

“WordPress.com is currently being targeted by a extremely large Distributed Denial of Service attack which is affecting connectivity in some cases. The size of the attack is multiple Gigabits per second and tens of millions of packets per second.
We are working to mitigate the attack, but because of the extreme size, it is proving rather difficult. At this time, everything should be back to normal as the attack has subsided, but we are actively working with our upstream providers on measures to prevent such attacks from affecting connectivity going forward. We will be making our VIP sites a priority in this endeavor, and as always, you can contact us via xxxxx@wordpress.com for the latest update. We will also update this post with more information as it becomes available.”

DDoS attacks happen. Is your business protected?  What can help your business survive a DDoS attack? Anycast. Anycast is a routing and networking method.  In this method, the same IP address is allocated to multiple name servers or hosts that all behave the same way, carry the same content and are capable of answering the same queries.  These name servers are located in various locations across the globe. Anycast automatically directs your customers to the name server that is located closest to them.

So, why is Anycast DNS so important?

Anycast makes DNS more reliable. Instead of traffic being sent to one name server, traffic is diverted to many different name servers.  If one server is congested, another server can take some of the load.

Anycast improves performance. We are a generation of instant gratification and one of my biggest pet peeves is waiting for a website to load. With Anycast, your customers can connect to a name server that is located closest to them, therefore reducing the amount of time it takes to receive the query. If the name server is located in California all queries from the west coast will be fast, but if the query is from New York, the queries will be slow, and queries from London will be even slower.  Anycast solves this problem and assures that all of your traffic is fast, no matter where the query is coming from.

Increase resilience to Internet Based Attacks. With multiple name servers available, attacks are mitigated and often concentrated to one server, rather than taking down the entire network.  Queries can be diverted to another name server in this instance, therefore causing no interruption of service.

Maintenance can be performed without any interruptions in service. During regular maintenance, DNS traffic is simply routed to the next available name server, therefore your customers are never without service.

Anycast DNS is great way to improve performance and resiliency of your network.

Since 2007, No-IP has been using IP anycast on some of our name server (NS) records. In the coming months all Managed and Backup DNS NS records will use anycast. Contact us today to learn more about what No-IP.com has to offer and how we can help implement Anycast DNS for your business!

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