Hey Sergey,
I think your Idea is really interesting, however I do have a small comment.
You create the hidden service on the Yurt installation (ex. yurtc329rc231[...].onion) and the corresponding DynDNS entry (ex. yurtc329rc231[...].jkl.mn). Now what if the user does not have Port-Forwarding set up? This would result in the DynDNS entry pointing to the public IP of the user to not work, whilst the .onion service does work, as Tor does not care much about NAT. This may make for a confusing user experience - especially since you want to be the NextCloud for inexperienced users. Do you intend on doing something about that? A possible solution would be to have the DynDNS server test connectivity, and if no connectivity is found the .jkl.mn domain points to some kind of clearnet->tor reverse-proxy. This way the data would simply be routed over Tor if the port forward is faulty.
I do however have to say: The Idea is great and definitely possible. Also I think this is a very important project for the future of easy self-hosting, as other FOSS-projects may benefit from using and adapting the code you write for Yurt-DynDNS! I'll definitely need to follow this project.
Have a nice day,* Kevin Kandlbinder* </kevin@kevink.dev/>
Am 29.06.2022 um 20:35 schrieb Sergey Ponomarev:
Hello the Tor Community,
I have a proposition to build a DynDNS server that will host onion-like addresses for regular websites. And I'll appreciate any feedback, opinions and thoughts on this.
I am working on a YurtPage which is a small home page server and kind of light version of NextCloud for inexperienced users. Some users already have an IP static or dynamic so their site can be directly accessed from the Internet. But still they need a domain to be independent from IP changes. Unfortunately domains are controlled by the DNS mafia and they cost money. The NameCoin's .bit domains are cool but they cost money too.
So for users I'll implement a Dynamic DNS (DynDNS) so that they'll automatically receive a subdomain of mine's jkl.mn site like SomeonesYurt.jkl.mn And the user's homepage will send ping to jkl.mn so it can detect the public IP and update a DNS record.
The problem is that I don't want to have a responsibility to host the DynDNS service. I may forget to renew its domain or hosting, or its server dies or I may die. And I decided to generate an onion-like address so they'll look like http://jklmnyiyjnwfc6aklubg45o4hbkvz5uu47hcwjinbihi4shcucq5aiid.jkl.mn/
I see a few advantages:
- In case the jkl.mn disappears users may install a Tor Onion Service
and visitors can still open the site by replacing jkl.mn to .onion in links. I'm going to install the Tor Service by default.
- I don't need to store a database: a homepage may just sign its
request with a private key and the DynDNS can check it and update a DNS record.
- Yes, the address is not possible to remember but anyone can save a
bookmark or use google to find it. Instead I'll not have cybersquatters who took all the good domains. Anyone can buy a domain and use CNAME if they wish.
What do you think about this idea? Will it work? I created a project to develop it https://github.com/yurt-page/dyndns-onion but decided to consult with you first.
To go further I think that the remaining problems may also be solved easily.
Volontiers may start their own DynDNS servers and exchange the records with each other. The homepage sends a Ticket to any DynDNS server. The Ticket is just an encrypted IP and timestamp and anybody can decrypt it with the public key from the domain. The ticket with last time is considered as actual and every DynDNS server may return its IP. Here may be used other technologies like DHT for a quicker lookup and to be independent if the jkl.mn domain disappears. Similarly to a .bit TLD we may have .dyn that are free to anyone. But unlike .onion domains the .dyn domains are not anonymous and lookups are not blocked on DNS level and can be answered by any.
I'm not an expert in DNS and TOR so please tell me if the idea is worth implementing.
Regards, Sergey Ponomarev stokito.com _______________________________________________ tor-onions mailing list tor-onions@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-onions