Related to DDNS and Port Forwarding

Question

I have seen DDNS and Port Forwarding both in my router.

My router gets different IP addresses. Dynamic DNS is enabled.

• In which case we use DDNS and in which case we use Port Forwarding?
• Are there any similarities between both?
• Are both related to each other?

While configuring DDNS, I have seen following fields.

• Service
• Service Port
• Host Name
• Domain
• Username
• Password

In Service, there are ten services. One of them is http://freedns.afraid.org/. I don’t know what is it and how to use it.

However, I signed up http://freedns.afraid.org/.

How to configure DDNS and what details I need to fill in above fields?

With Regards

UGN

Answer 1

In which case we use DDNS and in which case we use Port Forwarding?

You want to forward ports to the internet (i.e. allow connections from the outside to reach a host inside your network)? Port Forwarding.

You want to be able to a service inside your network that is changing IP addresses fairly often? DDNS (Dynamic DNS).

Are there any similarities between both?

No they are two completely different and independent things.

Are both related to each other?

In a sense, yes. You can use DDNS to be able to connect to your network without checking the IP address every day.

How to configure DDNS and what details I need to fill in above fields?

• Service: select the service you use.
• Service Port: select the port the service uses, weird setting, probably HTTP (80) or HTTPS (443).
• Host Name: your host name, typically the thing before the domain
• Domain: the domain, typically <ddns provider>.<tld> (substitute the terms as needed, TLD means top-level domain like .com, .org etc)
• Username: self-explanatory
• Password: see above