I'm a bit of a security nut.
So that's why I love these little webcams.
The problem with these web cams is that well they're behind a NAT-ed router.
So in order for me to access these webcams I have to know the IP address of the WAN side of my router.
Now that's OK it's no big deal for me to figure this out.
The problem is is that I obtained this IP address via DHCP.
So my router when he plugs into my ISP is given an IP address which changes from time to time.
So that's what makes these cameras tough to do long term because this IP address changes.
So to get around this we're going to use a very special kind of DNS known as dynamic DNS. Dynamic DNS
works in a very simple way.
You have some kind of client and this client is running behind the NAT-ed part of the router.
And it will go out onto the Internet and it will talk to a DNS service and there are companies out there
that provide dynamic DNS as a service and they will talk and they'll grab the WAN IP address.
And these dynamic DNS service companies have their own DNS servers and my WAN IP address will be
placed onto a domain name of my choosing.
So to make all this happen the first thing we're going to have to do is pick a dynamic DNS company and
sign up with them.
The one I'm going to use is an old favorite of mine.
It's called TZO.com.
There's a number of them out there I just like TZO.
And what we're going to do is set up a little trial account. It's only good for 14 days.
But it works perfectly and it's great for demonstration.
So I've actually gone ahead and signed up for the account already and they gave me a whole bunch of
different domains to choose from.
And I went ahead and chose TZO dot org.
So I'm going to give myself the name desweds because I like desweds. desweds dot TZO dot org and
it's going to link in to this address right here.
So there's a number of things happening let's watch them all.
Now the first thing I want to show you is I signed up for the account and I got this return e-mail from
TZO.
So they've given me desweds dot tzo dot org and I've been given this key.
The key is not a dynamic DNS thing it's a security feature that tzo puts into their stuff so that after
14 days I'm going to have to pay for it.
OK so now that I have this one of the first things I could do is I can and I did this already.
I downloaded their little client. Let me minimize this so you can appreciate that.
So I downloaded this little client tool.
So this client tool fires up I had to type my key into this that I got from my e-mail and he's going
out on the internet and talking to his DNS servers.
So once this client starts talking I can actually check the status of my DNS servers.
So I logged into the DNS site here and it sees my here's my desweds dot TZO dot org.
And you can see it knows my IP address.
The reason it knows that IP address is because the client told it. Now the only thing I have left to do
is I can go into my router and you can see I've already set it up.
I've set my router up with port forwarding.
So anything that's coming in from the Internet is going to go to the camera itself.
So I think I've got everything set up right.
I now have desweds dot TZO dot org signed up to the WAN IP address of my computer.
I've got port 80 forwarded.
So it should when you hit this it'll go through.
We'll say this is a camera it'll get to the camera.
The cool part is though is that I'm not using the IP address.
I'm actually using a dynamic DNS address so you know what I'm going to go and plug this in.
And let's see if we can see anything interesting.
OK so now if this is working right I should be able to type in desweds dot tzo dot o r g.
Fingers crossed.
OK fantastic.
It's got to the camera already so I know that the TZO dot org people have used the client they
have the IP address of the WAN side of my router and then my router itself is using port forwarding on
port 80 to send it to the camera so I know that part's working.
So heck, it lets you see what it sees.
OK so there's my camera.
It's pointing to the ceiling there a little bit.
And scroll down
that's that's my director Aaron.
He's taking a little nap.
Hey Aaron wake up.
So that's the power of dynamic DNS. Dynamic DNS simply allows us to take IP addresses that change.
That's mainly DHCP IP addresses
and by using clients we can talk to dynamic DNS servers which will automatically update and they'll
always have the right IP address for our devices.
It's a lot easier to type in a fully qualified domain name than an IP address.
Trust me I know.