One perk that someone told me about is that you can use your domain to get around not having a static IP (because the DNS will compensate).

If I were to get a Cloudflare domain name then what would be some other pros and cons?

  • Simon-RedditAccount@alien.topBEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago
    • good-looking domains instead of IPs
    • tons of subdomains instead of ports
    • universally recognized TLS certs via Let’s Encrypt. DNS challenges are the way to go - you don’t even have to expose your HTTP server
    • dynamic DNS, again available via API
    • inbox@yourdomain.com (better not to self-host, but to use an email provider)
    • tgp1994@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago
      • universally recognized TLS certs via Let’s Encrypt. DNS challenges are the way to go - you don’t even have to expose your HTTP server

      Just a note, as we’ve had this discussion before: DNS ACME challenges will publish the FQDN of every service you encrypt to a public record, which some sites will scrape up. Just in case this bothers some people.

    • eckadagan@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      universally recognized TLS certs via Let’s Encrypt. DNS challenges are the way to go - you don’t even have to expose your HTTP server

      I use DNS challenges for mine as well, but I have been manually renewing my cert every time. Is there a way to automate letsencrypt/cerbot renewal when you use DNS challenges?

    • trumpet7347@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Wanted to expand on your custom domain for an email since this is something I do to get a more professional email address to put on my resume. A lot of DNS services like Cloudflare or NameCheap will actually let you create email addresses off of your custom domain that will just forward to a different email of your choosing, and generally free or very very cheap as well. If you want to be able to actually send emails from your custom domain, you can setup a Google Workspace account with a single seat for $5 a month and have a fully hosted email solution that uses your custom domain name.

      • FanClubof5@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Proton mail will let you do wildcard email and it’s only $3-4 a month. If you need smtp support then you can just setup a hydroxide container.

      • WeedLover_1@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        better to use zoho. Zoho mails provides you 5 free custom email for free and zeptomail allows you to send k emails for 1 dollars

        • Electronic_Wind_3254@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          When I used Zoho Free, many of my emails would end up in people’s spam folders. My domain is certainly not on any blacklist, it was pointed correctly and with the security and domain validation features enabled and everything configured properly. Deployed it to small business clients as well and same result.

          Gmail doesn’t seem to like Zoho.

          What seemed to work like a charm was to use iCloud+ Custom Email and just add my custom domain addresses as aliases on Gmail. It’s like having a custom domain Google Workspace without paying anything (apart from the iCloud subscription that gives you a ton of space for all your data).

    • who_you_are@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      tons of subdomains instead of ports

      Just to be clear for OP, that applies only for protocols that “support DNS” as in, they send the DNS in the protocol.

      The one I have in mind: http(s) and emails.

      Games, FTP and most of the protocols don’t.

      • Bagel42@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Still a bit wrong. You can use things like Portzilla and make it so that certain subdomains are for certain game servers.

        • who_you_are@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Hum, then I am missing something because portzilla is just a reverse proxy by the look of it

          This mean:

          • you need to use http (games and ftp don’t)

          Or

          • you have multiple IPs (one per sub domain if I want to go with the examples from portzilla).

          I assumed OP was in IPV4 and only has one IP.

          Just to be sure from my other assumptions (kinda ELI5)

          • DNS doesn’t exist on the transport layer. It is converted to an IP and your computer just try to connect to that IP. So whatever DNS you use, if they point to the same IP you have no way to distinguish from what “DNS” they want to go.

          This is how networking works. Only with IP, no DNS.

          • some applications (http), added support for DNS. When the user type a DNS, even if your computer still use IP to reach the server, the browser will introduce itself by telling the server the DNS it tried to reach.