OT : Discovering WAN IP address for Dynamic DNS updates and Sky Broadband

I got my broadband migrated to Sky today.

I've been wobbling along on 512K for years, as when they installed it
they said I was over the s/n limit to even get 512. So I didn't expect
any more than that from Sky.

3104Kbps up, 384Kbps down. Woot!

(EasyNet do LLU in MK, services upto 24Mbps, *if* you're close enough
to the exchange)

Anyway, temporary fly in the ointment is Sky don't do static IPs, so
I've set everything up to use Dynamic DNS. Updating manually works
fine. There's an "auto" update client, ez-ipupdate, but that takes the
IP of the servers network card, which is a meaningless local IP. (and
yes, EasyDNS accepted it.. oh what fun

ex-ipupdate can be fed the WAN IP on the command line, so I was going
to use something to find out my WAN IP, extract it and feed it to
ez-ipupdate.

Thing is, how do I find out the WAN IP address?

 

ginge? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

It does, but I'm with EasyDNS, and the drop down list of service
providers only has DynDNS in it.

I found that out, ta. Mines in lower case thou.

 

Hope you got those the wrong way round

Ask your router

TBH though there are better ways of doing it:
http://www.no-ip.com/

Does it all for you

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catman? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

Aha, yes, thangewe

Arf arf, OK, how do I programatically find out my WAN IP address?

They provide a normal dynamic DNS service, just like EasyDNS do.

Only difference is they've written their own little bit of client s/w
to update the IP.

There must be a way of doing this, I've seen bits of software figure
out my WAN IP address from a machine in the LAN.

 

I don't quite see what the issue is

That's *exactly* what their software does. I've used it loads of times
in the past Unless you just want to find out the WAN IP for some other
reason, just so you can connect to it without a dynamic DNS service?

OTTOMH I think the only way to do that would be to have your client
machine log in to a remote machine which then records the IP (like,
perhaps an SSH shell)

You might be able to do it from a traceroute as well, but you'd still
need to get that info out of your LAN so you can access it remotely
(assuming that's what you want to do)


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If you have access to a remote web server that will run perl CGI scripts,
put the following script out there. You can then access it with wget or
what have you. It simply echoes your WAN IP.


#!/usr/bin/perl

use CGI header, start_html, end_html;

print header();

print start_html('My IP...');

print "<PRE><font size=4>";

print $ENV{'REMOTE_ADDR'};

print "\n<br></font>\n";

print end_html();

print "\n";

 

catman? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

I suspect the no-ip client software will only update their service.

I'm with EasyDNS.

(Been using them for years, good service, reliable, and since I know
this little problem can be sorted there's no point in moving)

With no-ip or another dynamicDNS provider?

Well, its not for some other reason, but close. EasyDNS have made their
dynamicDNS API available to anyone who wants to use it. So you have a
piece of perl/code that, given an IP, will update EasyDNS' records for
your domains, OK? (google for ez-ipupdate, that can grab the IP from a
local net interface (no good) or be passed it on the command line (what
I want))

You just need the WAN IP to feed into that.

Which is why I want to find out the WAN IP.

I've sorted it now anyway, but it seems a lot of these client programs
just use a webpage like "whatsmyip.com" or
"http://checkip.dyndns.org/", and extract the IP from that.

But this sorted it for me : http://search.cpan.org/~gbrock/DNS-EasyDNS/

Little perl program and a script that nabs the IP from any of the above
URLs and updates EasyDNS' dynDNS record with it.

 

Gas Giant? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

Aha, thanks, I'll chuck that on our work web server, I don't like the
idea of using someone elses "whats my IP" web page when I don't use
their service.

 

What difference does it make? You just connect to username.no-ip.com

Ahh, now it becomes clear(er)

Seems like an un-necessary hassle, but hey, it's not my hassle

Neat.

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catman? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

If you DO NOT use "no-ip", can their software update A DIFFERENT
dynamic DNS service provider?

Also "username.no-ip.com" - ewww! How cheesy! I want ukrm.co.uk and
sqweek.net to point to me, A and MX records, plus have a fallback MX
server provided by the DNS provider.

A little. Why EasyDNS don't knock up a little program to do what is
needed I don't know. Probably the hassle of then having to support
linux, Windows, Mac, <insert 30 year old mainframe> variants.

Its a lot less hassle than changing my DNS providers over to no-ip.

'tis, so I've left it in again

 

It can't I just couldn't see why you were getting precious about what
dDNS service you use FFS

If you say so.

Very wise. I'm sure you'll all be very happy together


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Then change? DynDNS is free, after all.

 

Oooh, no. Don't suggest that

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catman? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

Chill dude. It took me an hour or so googling and playing around to
sort the problem, it'd take me a lot longer than that to transfer to a
different DNS provider, not to mention I'd loose the remainder of the
years hosting I'd paid for. I can't see why you'd change a service
provider cause of a little technical problem?

If I was starting from scratch, it'd be a different case.

Comparing the two companies, Easy is $5 cheaper a year, offers control
of twice as many host names, unlimited MX records, round robin DNS,
no-ip has URL and port 80 forwarding, but thats about it.

Anyway, we're both happy, so all's well.

 

This is UKRM, that hardly counts as 'un-chill'

It took me an hour or so googling and playing around to

*Personally* I don't use dDNS for something as in depth as you do. I
get a proper IP and have 'proper'DNS servers .dDNS is it nice little toy
for helping domestic clients.

As is typical in IT, it never really thought that someone else would do
it differently, least of all pay for it

Indeed so.


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Slider? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

http://www.dyndns.com/services/pricing/

Custom DNS (the service level I need) : $24.95 per year.

 

catman? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

True, but in the traditional "Oooh, it'll save me money" sense I
changed to Sky BB, I knew it didn't do static IPs (otherwise I'd have
paid the extra), saw EasyDNS have now added dDNS to their list of
stuff, so decided to implement that.

And here I am.

Ok, a load of SMTP servers will probably now tell me to **** off when I
try to send email to them as I'm using dDNS, but thats life!

Nah, paid Easy as a DNS provider for my static IP for years, still
doing that, they've just added dDNS to the package and I'm using it.

 

<tangent> I've been considering that, but getting anything fixed by
Plus is a joke these days. How are sky CS?


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catman wrote:
[Sky BB]

I'm currently in the process of changing from Plus to Sky.

I will finally get shot of Plus on 10th Oct., a mere two months after
my initial request to cancel.

 

Figures

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