Using DynDNS Services with CCTV/Security/POS Systems

The growth in the availability of high speed "broadband" connections (DSL and cable) is bringing significant changes to a number of markets and technologies, including the deployment of CCTV (closed circuit TV) and security cameras as well as POS (point of sale) systems.

Prior to the advent of (relatively) low cost broadband connections, these sorts of systems needed to be installed with low bandwidth analog phone lines or expensive switched circuits (ISDN, frame relay, etc).

Broadband internet connections are changing this, providing a low cost/high bandwidth connectivity solution, but with one significant drawback. In most cases, the ISPs providing these services are unable or unwilling to provide a static (fixed) IP address. In cases where they are willing to provide this, they do so at a much higher cost (often 4 or 5 times the cost of their service with a dynamic IP address).

The solution to this problem is our Dynamic DNS service. However, in the specific cases of these sorts of systems there is an added complication. Many (most) of these sorts of systems are being installed not by end users but by systems integrators (security companies, POS providers, etc), and this raises a number of issues which need to be handled properly.

Multiple Accounts

Let us consider, for example, that you are a security systems provider. You install CCTV systems in various locations and need to be able to monitor and/or manage these locations remotely. You could setup a single account to manage all of your locations, but in doing so you would be creating a security nightmare. Since that one account would have a single username/password to manage all locations, you would be exposing that info at each customers site.

For this reason, we strongly recommend that such companies setup a separate (paid) account for each customer. Note that each account will need to have a unique email address. In such a case, that email address should probably be one under your own control.

One way to do this effectively is via + style extensions (if your mail server supports these). That is, if your company domain is example.com, you might setup an email address dyndns@example.com and then use + style extended addresses such as dyndns+customer@example.com, dyndns+another@example.com, etc.

Many mail servers do support these, check the docs for your specific mail server to see if it does, or with your email provider if you have a hosted email solution.

Private Label Program

DynDNS provides a DNS program for OEMs who need to integrate DNS (either static DNS or dynamic DNS) functionality into their products. This platform provides an effective directory service to enable remote access to hardware and software on the Internet. For more information on the Private Label Program, please visit the Developers' Connection

Account Upgrades

When setting up multiple accounts, it is very important to keep in mind that each such account must be a paid account. We are more than happy to provide free accounts to end users (one account per person), but anyone setting up accounts for others (as in this case) must set these up as paid accounts.

We provide an Account Upgrade that is ideal for this purpose. In addition to allowing that account to create more than 5 hosts in our Dynamic DNS service, this also removes the 35 day update requirement.

Compared to the cost of installing a service at each location with a static IP address, this is a very cost effective alternative.

Using Custom DNS instead of Dynamic DNS

One thing we have run into with customers doing CCTV/POS systems, is that they would prefer to be able to use host names within a domain they own rather than host names within one of our domains. This gives them the ability to brand the service they are providing and also help avoid host name conflicts.

This is possible using a variation on the above. Instead of purchasing an Account Upgrade for each account, you would purchase a Custom DNS credit for each account (including a "master" account).

In the master account, you would setup a Custom DNS zone for the domain you are going to use for the various systems. Let's call this "acmesecuritycctv.com". Then, in each customer account, you would setup Custom DNS for a subdomain of this domain. So, for example, you might setup a Custom DNS zone in a customer account for:

freds-eats.acmesecuritycctv.com

If the customer has systems at multiple locations, you would create separate hosts within this Custom DNS zone for each location (unlike with Account Upgrades, you won't be limited in the number of hosts you can setup within this zone). In the Custom DNS zone for "acmesecuritycctv.com" you would create NS records for those subdomains:

HOST TTL TYPE DATA
freds-eats 43200 NS ns1.mydyndns.org.
freds-eats 43200 NS ns2.mydyndns.org.