dyndns (from "system calls")

[Brendan]

Hi,

p.s. Brendan: I can't seem to be able to see your site. Is it down?

Grumble, grumble, dynamic IP, grumble.

Unfortunately, at the moment I'm using a broadband connection where the ISP occasionally changes my IP number for no good reason - even though the server itself is never down (except during blackouts/power failures) and even though I've got "ping" on a cron script to avoid "idle disconnection".

Usually it works reliably, but about once every month or 2 I need to reset the DNS entry (noip.com) so it points to a new IP number.

Because of the way it works, the broadband modem operates seamlessly so my internet access is never interrupted due to an IP number change, and I never really know when the IP number has changed (e.g. from my servers perspective, it's always 10.0.0.2). To make it worse, because I'm on the "wrong" side of the broadband modem I can't easily detect when my site isn't reachable (e.g. I can always get my web site from my LAN, regardless of whether it's on the internet or not).

Fortunately, I'm in the middle of changing to a professional web host. This will solve this problem and result in a massive improvement in web site speed. The new web site will be http://bcos.zapto.org.

Currently I've only put the downloads and screen shots on the new web host.

Unfortunately, some parts of my site are auto-generated and can't be shifted easily (e.g. the HTML source code pages), and other things are going to take a lot of work to shift due to CGI code that I wrote in C instead of perl or php (e.g. the regional database and forums). I'm trying to get all 3 versions of my "kernel setup code" to the same state before I start shifting to the web host properly.

Anyway, my DNS should be correct now.


Cheers,

Brendan

[Solar]

Erm... I don't know about noip.com, but usually you can make your system update such dynamic IP's automatically using some script or another... (I know such scripts exist for dyndns.org, but as my DSL router supports that directly my dyndns.org IP is never off anyway...)

[Brendan]

Hi,

Erm... I don't know about noip.com, but usually you can make your system update such dynamic IP's automatically using some script or another... (I know such scripts exist for dyndns.org, but as my DSL router supports that directly my dyndns.org IP is never off anyway...)

My broadband modem isn't so nice. There is a utility available at noip.com for updating the IP address which I could put on a cron script, but I'm not sure if it works correctly (I tried it but it didn't seem to work - might be a problem with the firewall, but I'm not sure).

A proper web host has other advantages too - the speed difference is insane (7 gigabit links compared to one 128/256 Kbps link), I can use my server for OS testing again, I can play online games without worrying about being killed due to lag caused by someone looking at screen shots, I can do large downloads without effecting other people's access to my web site, it's not effected by blackouts/power failures, a good article about my OS on osnews.com could cripple the site for days, etc.

Eventually (if I figure out how to shift all of it to the web host) I might even be able to turn the server off when I'm not using it - being able to go to sleep without the noise of a commercial style rack mount server humming along in the background would be a bonus .

I could upgrade my local internet connection, but there's limits to what can be done and the "bang per buck" factor isn't favourable.


Cheers,

Brendan

[Brendan]

Hi,

Just a quick note - I've shifted everything that can be easily shifted to the professional web host, and fixed the "noip" update utility.

Now, my main web site should be 100% reliable and fast, and the pages that remain on my "development server" should never be inaccessible for more than 30 minutes.


Cheers,

Brendan