Do you need a domain name if you are hosting a Lemmy instance, or will it work fine with just an ip-address + port (e.g. <username>@<ip-address>:<port>
)?
It requires an HTTPS connection, and certificates can only be obtained for domain names. So yes, pretty much.
Also consider than IPs can change, even if you’re using a hosting provider. Domain names makes changing the IP much easier.
Domain names can be obtained for as cheap as $3/year for the xyz TLD. If you can’t pay for anything, there’s also free services that can let you get a subdomain, like noip.com, afraid.org, azote.org.
Also if you dont mind numbers .xyz domains can be like $1 a year. It has to be only numbers and i think at least 9 digits.
Sorry but do you mean that .xyz domains only allow for a numbers only domain name? Because I don’t think that’s true.
No i mean if you want a super cheap .xyz domain, its very cheap if you choose a domain that is digits only. For example my lemmy domain is 158436977.xyz. its 89 cents a year.
You can certainly have xyz domains that are words just like any other.
Oh, that is actually a good idea if a cheap domain is wanted.
What name registrar would you recommend?
EDIT: found one for 0.85 dollars on namecheap
EDIT EDIT: for some reason its labeled as a “premium domain” :P
Namecheap is what I use ya. They are also really great if you have some internal services and want just a cheap domain to get SSL certs from LetEncrypt. All my internal traffic is SSL now because why not, its 85 cents a year. And no dealing with self-signed certs.