I just set up a dyndns account for my dynamic IP. I am wondering what would be better... Should I set my hostname to machine-name.dyndns.org or should I set up my hostname as machine-name and my domain as dyndns.org? Or does it not make a difference?

The internet address/hostname of your machine need not be the same as your local name for it.

For example, my silly host is mshade.kicks-ass.net
But my computer's name is "gobot".

I wouldn't worry about it... Name it Hal for all it cares

--Shade

So is your domain name "mshade.kicks-ass.net" ?

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to set. Technically (I think) you are not a part of dyndns.org domain. Their name servers are just set to resolve a part of their name space to your IP address. That's all. If you do a reverse dns lookup, you'll find your true domain (or the domain of your nat/firewall/router as the case may be).

Someone correct me if I'm wrong please.

Yeah I believe you are right.

I was just looking at shilo's guide and he says "Next, I'm gonna change the name of my computer. I use netconfig to change my hostname to username and my domain name to dyndns.org. This matches the setting for my account that I set up on http://dyndns.org . Now we are ready to start servin' up to the net." So I guess if you want to be able to set up services like ftp and apache, that would be good to do.

I was actually wondering about a pretty similar situation. The difference is that i decided to spend a couple of bucks and bought Custom DNS service and registered a domain (mysite.com). The question is pretty much the same. I'm running Slackware 10.0 fresh install, and during the installation process when netconfig asks for host and domain configuration i'm not sure what to put. Am i supposed to write the computer name say storage for host and type in domain: mysite.com, or should i type the dyndns.org domain and use some script to resolve my dynamic IP to the domain i purchased. Thank you for the help, time and consideration.

What custom DNS service do you have? I would love to run my own domain, but I am told the problem is that I dont have authority over the zone to do reverse DNS.

The one that they offer and i purchased the domain from them.

And you can do forward AND reverse DNS?

That's what they say this service offers. I'm waiting for the tech support to answer this very same question but i guess the soonest reply i'll get will be on monday.

Where is this at?

Let me know how this works out for you. I may try it myself. I would rather do it the "real" way and run my own DNS, but I don't think that is possible because reverse DNS wouldn't work.

"How can I create a PTR record?
You cannot. Due to the nature of DNS and the way reverse lookups work, PTR records can only be controlled by your ISP. Even if you had static IP addresses and could get your reverse DNS delegated appropriately, it would be necessary to have a separate zone for PTR records. We do not support PTR in Custom DNS at this time, due to the very small number of customers who could actually take advantage of such a capability. "

Doesn't that mean they won't support reverse DNS?