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This question was originally included on another post, and was moved here as a standalone question for clarity.


Hi Cory,

I've tried to get this working with my Airport Extreme running version 7.5 (75000.17) and using version 5.5 (550.29) of the Airport Utility but can't get it to work. I've checked over the instructions several times and can't see where I'm going wrong.

I can get my laptop to work though so I guess that I have the DNS set up correctly and I really can't see the difference in what I'm doing between the laptop and the airport.

Any suggestions? Is there something missing in the instructions for the Airport?

Thanks, Alan


The settings for the base station

alt text

and here is the host name section:

alt text

I did wonder whether I needed to share anything on the airport to get t to work so I published my printer, that turned up as various entries but none with my global hostname.

Regards Alan

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6 Answers

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I've just checked and it is now working? I haven't changed anything although I did take my laptop into the office so it would have updated its record. I also power-cycled the modem when I returned home which would have caused the Airport to reconnect and update its record also.

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Alan,

After looking at the log files on our end and seeing your updates come through, I've identified the issue.

The logic in the Apple products for advertising a global dynamic hostname in DynDNS.com has a precondition of determining whether or not a hostname already exists. That's not to say the specified hostname exists; rather, it checks for any hostname in existence.

This is determined by the device doing a reverse DNS lookup of its IP address.

From the perspective of the Apple AirPort device, the IP address is the WAN IP. The Apple AirPort did the equivalent of (where NN.NN.NN.NN is your WAN IP address):

dig -x NN.NN.NN.NN

And found a valid hostname for its WAN IP in reverse DNS. Since the device determined that it already had a valid hostname, there was no need for it register another one at airport-extreme.justtoast.com.

If you look in your Custom DNS zone, you will indeed see your printer advertised, and the SRV records are pointing to this hostname that the Apple AirPort found by doing a reverse DNS lookup. The device only talked to the servers at DynDNS.com when it needed to register the service; it had no need to create another global dynamic hostname, since it had already found one.

Compare and contrast this to your computer accessing the Internet from behind the Apple AirPort. This computer would have an internal NAT IP. When your computer did a reverse DNS lookup, no result would have been returned, since the address is private to your network and you likely did not configure reverse DNS for your network. Therefore, to be uniquely identified, your computer registered a dynamic global hostname at DynDNS.com. Had your computer been directly connected to your cable/DSL model or other means of connectivity (and not behind the Apple AirPort home gateway), it would have done the same thing that the AirPort did: used the hostname returned by the reverse DNS lookup.

It's important to note that all of this is transparent to your users for the purpose of sharing services. They never have to enter "airport-extreme.justtoast.com", they only have to browse "justtoast.com" for advertised services, and their computers will be able to access those services using friendly instance names.

Regardless of whether the actual hosts use the already provided hostnames as determined by reverse DNS or register new hostnames within your zone, the PTR, SRV, and TXT records required for Wide Area Bonjour are still setup correctly, and users can successfully discover the services.

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I engaged some of the folks at Apple, and it looks like this may be a bug in the AirPort devices.

http://lists.apple.com/archives/bonjour-dev//2010/Mar/msg00014.html

I'll post back as soon as I know more.

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Hi Cory,

I'm guessing the valid hostname for the WAN IP was from my ISP? The problem I have is that my IP is dynamic and changes regularly due to the poor connection I have and that my ISP will always have a reverse DNS hostname.

My original intention was to make my Airport's ip address available much like I used to do with my old router and your dynamic DNS offering. I use a PPoA to PPPoE modem connected to the Airport which allows me to use more features of the Airport than if it was in bridge mode. I now use your DNS update client on the two computers that I have at home and they update the dynamic DNS hostname that I have.

The problem at the moment is that the computers on my network will need to be on to register my IP address and that's not always the case, especially when I'm not there. The Airport is on all the time though and I would like to add a hard drive and make that available to the WAN but will need the Airport to advertise it's address.

Let's hope that Apple have fixed the issue as you see it and that the next update allows my Airport to create a global dynamic hostname at my domain regardless of whether it has one elsewhere.

Regards Alan

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You got it. That is our goal. As soon as I have more info from the folks at Apple, I'll pass it along. I'll be meeting with some of them at IETF 77 in two weeks in Anaheim. – cvonwallenstein Mar 11 at 13:56
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Hi Cory,

I believe IETF 77 is now over. Did you eventually get to head along and if so is there anything to report from your contacts at Apple on this particular issue?

Thanks
Chris

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Hi Chris, Yes, it's an issue they've encountered before, and I think our observation that the behavior is different if the PTR record exists for the device IP has given them some useful direction to check out. I just sent out a follow up email to our contacts there, and hopefully will hear back soon on when this will be fixed. I'll keep the DynDNS.com Community posted on our progress! -Cory – cvonwallenstein Apr 14 at 16:10
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Cory:

As a Mac consultant, I'm very excited about dyndns service for wide-area Bonjour. This is something I think my clients will like. As a Time Capsule owner, I'm certainly interested.

So far as I know, you haven't posted any updates to this issue since April. Has there been any news since then?

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