[ale] State of play re home Internet with static IP

[Alex Carver]

On 2019-03-04 19:05, dev null zero two via Ale wrote:
> a couple dumb questions:
> 
> why do y'all host email at home other than for learning / lab purposes?
> 
> why do y'all need static IPs aside from email server purposes when dynamic
> dns works so well nowadays with cloudflare for instance?
> 
> most next gen firewalls can take DNS in place of IPs for ACLs and rarely
> does any commercial internet facing service have just one IP address in any
> case (anycast, load balancing, etc)
> 

I host my own email server at home so I can maintain some control of the
endpoint.  I don't have to concern myself with a hosted server deciding
to raise my rates or trying to switch from one host provider to another,
my server just goes with me.  I also like the storage device being
entirely in my control, it's not sitting on a remote machine where the
hosting provider could potentially access it (yes, that's excessively
paranoid but whatever.)

I use static IPs for the email server, a web server, and, most
importantly, my VPN server which I use on my phone and on any remote
computer.  I'm also working on setting up VoIP at home with Asterisk so
I'll have a static to ensure the connection to a VoIP provider for an
outside line as well as sending the VoIP SIP/RTP data over the VPN
between remote stations and my Asterisk server.

None of my firewall rules specify my own IP or even my FQDN, they're
agnostic of that.  But, I did at one point use a dynamic DNS provider
and that sucked when the connection was unstable because the IP changed
each time it went out and that might be more than once in a day,
certainly at least once a week.  Static IP was easier except when moving
to a new place because the IP range changed with geographic area.  But
even then, a quick login of the registrar, point the DNS record over to
the new IP and wait for the TTL to expire.