Verizon FIOS
As you may have noticed if you checked the IP of my server, or looked in the address bar, I use DynDNS.org dynamic DNS redirection. My internet connection is via Verizon FIOS. It is a dynamic IP connection, and changes quite frequently - every few days. Therefore, in order to get DNS, I use the *free* service from DynDNS.org. Essentially, they handle DNS resolution for jantman.dyndns.org. www.jasonantman.com, in addition to my other domains, forward (via GoDaddy's free forwarding) to http://jantman.dyndns.org:10011. Most common personal-class routers have update clients to update DynDNS with your current IP. IPcop and m0n0wall have builtin clients, and there are also clients available for Linux, BSD, and most other common OSs.
Why port 10011? Because Verizon has blocked incoming traffic on port 80, the standard HTTP port. The higher unassigned ports, however, (in the range of ~10000-100019) are open. This is usually not a problem, except that certain corporate content filters block HTTP to anything other than 80, which results in a page not found error. At the moment, I'm unaware of any workaround other than either getting an ISP that allows port 80, or using an external server/hosting company. FIOS is great - it's inexpensive, the transfer rates are great, and it seems that port 80 is the only blocked port - SSH, SFTP, IMAP, SMTP, etc. all work fine on their default ports, though for security reasons, I have moved many of them to non-standard ports.
So, to summarize how it works to run a server with FIOS:
- Setup your web server internally.
- Setup your firewall to forward some unused port to 80 on your webserver (I use 10011).
- Setup an account with DynDNS.org and setup your router to upate DynDNS with your WAN IP.
- Now, test the external access by going to http://{yourname}.dyndns.org:{your port}. For me, this URL would be http://jantman.dyndns.org:10011.
- Setup forwarding through your registrar, so you can use a "real" domain name.
Also note that your domain name will NOT reverse-validate, so sending email could be a problem (you may need to relay it through a mail server like Verizon's).
