Server Setup
Step 5: Registering an Internet Name

Unless you have static IP service (very rare), your router's IP address can change at any time. If your Share Your Sky! observers rely on URIs containing your ACP server's IP address, they will discover that these IP addresses become invalid from time to time. The solution is to use a dynamic DNS (DDNS) service to provide a friendly domain name for your ACP servers. We have set up a service with No-IP.Com that allows you to have this service at no charge to you.

Do not sign up for your own No-IP.com service. Please read on, you already have the ability to use No-IP.com and the my-sky.com domain at no cost to you!

Setting Up Your My-Sky Domain

Here's how to get your own my-sky.com domain (e.g. myobs.my-sky.com):

1. Pick a name for your domain. Keep it short! Long domain names are more trouble for your users than IP addresses. Leave the word 'observatory' out of the domain name, it inflates the length and your users know they're using an observatory anyway. If you have an IAU observatory code, you could use it as your domain name, e.g., iau663.my-sky.com. Consider playing the 'vanity license plate' game and limiting your domain name to 8 characters or less. People will remember those short names just fine.
2. Contact us via telephone at +1 480 396 9700. We'll check your name to make sure it isn't already in use, then register it for you. You'll get a username and password for step 6.
3. Go to the No-IP.com Downloads page and download the updater applet. This applet runs in the background and monitors your router's WAN IP address. If it changes, the applet sends the new IP address to the domain name servers, keeping the domain/IP translation current.
4. Be sure your ACP computer is online and can access the internet. Run the No-IP Updater setup program. Do not change any of the defaults (install path or checkbox options).
5. After installation, the No-IP Dynamic Update Client (DUC) can be started. Here is what you will see:
   
   Do not sign up for your own account!
6. Enter the username and password we gave you in step 2. The username will be of the form myobs:rdenny@dc3.com, where myobs is your domain and the rdenny@dc3.com is always the same (the master email address for the My-Sky.com service). Now you'll see the updater client:
   
7. If your login succeeded, you will see green checkmarks. Your domain is online! Allow a few hours for it to percolate through the dynamic name service before testing with others. It might work very quickly, but don't depend on it. Once it is established, though, IP updates will propagate quickly. If you have problems. see Troublsehooting No-IP below.
8. One last thing: enable auto-startup of the DUC. Click the Options button in the DUC window. You will see this:
    
   Enable Enable a system service. This will require you to have Admin rights. Don't enable any of the other options.

Routine Use

Once you have registered your my-sky.com domain, your users will no longer have to wrestle with a (possibly changing) IP address. To access your Share Your Sky! observatory web, your users enter http://host.my-sky.com/. If you had to use a non-standard port, they will still have to include the port number in the URI, for example http://host.my-sky.com:8080/.

For FTP access, again use the domain name host.my-sky.com. Normally they will use the default FTP port of 21, but if you had to use a non-standard port, they will need to change the port number to the custom one you set up.

Troubleshooting No-IP

The most common problem is getting the username and password wrong. Look at the username at the top of the DUC window. Is it right? It should be host:rdenny@dc3.com, where host is the name that we registered for you in step 2. If it's right, then the password is probably wrong. Click the Edit button at the top of the DUC window and you'll see the login window shown in step 5 above. Retype your password and click OK. Once you get this right, you should see a successful update in the status bar along the bottom and your router's (dynamic) WAN IP should be shown.

If you have questions or problems, you can look at the log (there are two) under the Tools menu, Logs (at the bottom), Graphical Client Log and Background Service Log. It's sort of cryptic that your domain is treated as a "group" but it is. In the log you should be seeing things like this:

6/23/2015 8:33:18 AM: Remote IP Found: 70.167.219.237
6/23/2015 8:33:18 AM: Submitting ducupdate.php as C3A16719602 - g[]=blaze
6/23/2015 8:33:19 AM: [Update] blaze, GroupUpdateSuccess
6/23/2015 8:33:37 AM: Retrieving settings.php as C3A16719602
6/23/2015 8:33:38 AM: Retrieving host-actions.php?action=domlist as C3A16719602

If you don't see any activity in the log window, or you see connection problems logged, then there is something wrong with the connectivity between your ACP computer and the internet. Try starting your web browser and logging into a well-known web site like Google. If this doesn't work, you'll have to solve this problem first. It has nothing to do with ACP or the No-IP DUC.