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Show HN: Backname.io – every IP address gets its own domain

by Twixes on 9/28/23, 3:27 PM with 48 comments

I was setting up tests involving DNS resolution recently, where something like 127.0.0.1.service.foo would have been tremendously useful. Back in the day, I'd have used xip.io - but sadly that service died.

Well, every excuse is a good one when it comes to writing a DNS server! Backname.io joins nip.io and sslip.io in the wildcard DNS game.

  • by eyepeevee on 9/28/23, 10:17 PM

    Nice. I've seen other usecases for this.

    Accessing an IPv4 address on a IPv6-only network with NAT64/DNS64 is only possible if you access that IPv4 via a DNS name that resolves to the IPv4 address. DNS64 will turn your A record into an AAAA record, with the IPv4 address mapped to a v6 addrsss that the NAT64 layer knows how to "undo".

    I've seen others need this a few times in practice.

  • by quickthrower2 on 9/28/23, 10:50 PM

    The problem is someone ends up using one of these in production. Then backname.io becomes an attractive target.

    It would be cool to have it as a locally installed custom DNS resolver on the developers computer though.

  • by YaBa on 9/28/23, 5:10 PM

    I'm failing to see the utility of this if I still have to type the IP address. Also, it fails using local address like 192-168-1-1.backname.io where it might be usefull somehow, so, please explain. Thanks.

  • by globular-toast on 9/28/23, 7:05 PM

    xip.io was indeed useful. nip.io seems to still work.

    Isn't the main useful aspect that you can do xyz.1.2.3.4.backname.io where xyz is anything you want? Perhaps you set this up anyway, but would be worth mentioning.

  • by eva_cananim on 9/29/23, 11:54 AM

    There is also http://traefik.me/

    There is https://ipq.co/ and https://fdns.uk/ that will let you create a name to point to a chosen ip.

  • by ncruces on 9/29/23, 10:25 AM

    https://github.com/ncruces/keyless was my attempt to provide you with the necessary tools to build your own service that would not only:

      - give you a domain for any IP (even local IPs);
  - give you SSL on that domain (even local IPs!);
  - abide by Let's Encrypt terms.

  • by ttymck on 9/28/23, 5:38 PM

    Does this serve the same purpose as .in-addr.arpa?

  • by thefilmore on 9/29/23, 12:05 AM

    I can think of at least four reasons and security concerns not to use a service like this:

    - Exposing a potentially private IP to an external service

    - If testing local IPs, adds a requirement for an internet connection

    - Must trust that it will always resolve to the actual IP not another one

    - Requires your service to accept a hostname that it likely shouldn't

  • by plagiat0r on 9/30/23, 4:15 AM

    Just by looking at the handler, it is not RFC compliant. I do not see SOA record being generated properly nor do I see a proper handling of nxdomain vs nodatae responses.

    See RFC 2308.

  • by pipo234 on 9/28/23, 3:33 PM

    > 127-0-0-1.backname.io resolves to 127.0.0.1

    Is this enough to fool Edge (Windows 10) into allowing you to view your local Apache development environment?

  • by gitgud on 9/28/23, 9:57 PM

    This is cool! So I can spin up a server, then instantly get a domain and then an SSL cert, nice!

  • by theyknowitsxmas on 9/28/23, 10:42 PM