I want to try out some things with a secondary domain. I'd prefer ethical and non-shady providers. I have a fixed IP and a VPS to go with it, so it's really only about the domain. A subdomain of my current domain is not enough. Even paying very little is not an option right now.

I just spent 15min searching the fediverse for this and the most relevant post is 3 years old. I know I can search the WWW and get lots of results, but I want your opinions!

TIA

edit: A subdomain of a free domain provider would be sufficient.
And stop the downvoting. This is a valid question.

I think the downvotes are probably because you make it sound like you expect to be able to get a normal domain name without paying.

Your best bet may be to look for a dynamic dns provider, as they let you map a hostname to your IP address, whether it's static or dynamic.

I think the downvotes are probably because you make it sound like you expect to be able to get a normal domain name without paying.

I am pretty sure that this is possible.

Your best bet may be to look for a dynamic dns provider

Well that should work for static IPs too, I guess. Recommendations?

they let you map a hostname to your IP address

WDYM by "hostname"?

I don't think there are any free ones left. You may look into dynamic dns to get free subdomains.

I don't have any specific recommendations, you'll need to decide how the various providers match up to your ethical requirements. You say you just want to "try out some things with a secondary domain", so you may want to take the opportunity to test a few of the services to see which suits you best.

WDYM by “hostname”?

In terms of DNS, a hostname is just the name that you want to be able to resolve to an IP address, so, for instance www.google.con is a hostname in the google.com domain. Because the system is hierarchical, google.com can also be a hostname in the com domain. Specifically, a hostname is represented by an A record in the domain, and a nested, or sub, domain is represented by a NS record, with similar types for IPv6 addresses.

I personally use freedns.afraid.org, specifically a .ignorelist.com subdomain

OK. That's a domain then. Top level + secondary to be precise. hostname is less specific than just calling it a domain. Could be just google in your example.

Thanks, this looks intersting.