Can Nextcloud handle IP changes (is there a discovery server)?

Hello,

I’m investigating Nextcloud for personal and small business use. I want to set up a server at home and access it remotely. At home I don’t have a business internet connection, which means I don’t have a static IP. My question then, is: does Nextcloud have a workaround for this so my files can still be accessed if the IP address changes?

As an example of what I mean, I currently use Syncthing as a distributed alternative to Dropbox. Syncthing has no central server, but clients connect to each other over the internet or on your LAN to keep files synchronised. It works great for individual use, but isn’t so suitable for sharing between groups of people. To handle changing IP addresses, the authors of Syncthing provide a discovery server, which allows the nodes of the network to discover each others IP addresses and connect to each other directly. No file data is transferred over this discovery server, just the information to allow the nodes in your network to connect to each other.

Does Nextcloud have a similar system, or any other way to deal smoothly with a changing IP address where my Nextcloud instance lives? I’ve tried searching for various things to see if this is the case, but it either doesn’t exist, or my google-fu is weak!

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You need a dynamic dns provider. If you have your own domain, some providers have such a dynamic dns support. Or you use a free service such as no-ip.com.

I see, thanks, I will investigate these options.

Hey Richard,

ZeroTier can solve this problem for you. It’s an open source P2P VPN which can handle dynamic IP changes and present you with a static IP to use anywhere in the world.

We will likely make a writeup specifically for nextcloud users but for now If you have any questions definitely let me know and I can try to help.

  • Joe

A really nice, free option is duckdns. Simple to set up too.

I’ve always used NC/oc with a consumer line and dynamic IP without any issue.

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Actually I have ended up moving to Gandi as my domain host and using gandi-dyndns to update the ip address for redirection on their servers. No extra costs required!

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