IP and me

[eyoungren]

This morning I broke down and got myself a DNS service at noip.com. I went with their service that allowed me to register my own domain name and I kept it in line with one of the domain names I already have. Apparently the .net address of my domain name was available, so now I have both the .com and .net.

Anyway, the point of this is that my ISP (Cox) won't give you a static IP address unless you have a business account. And they infrequently, but more frequently than I like, change my IP address on me. That causes connection issues and my laptops cannot find the time machine backup when away from home.

noip.com will dynamically resolve a domain name to whatever IP address Cox changes it to so all I have to connect to is the domain name. No more updating things manually.

Had to add AFP (port 548) as a hostname though before my laptops could connect. But that was fairly painless.

I'm just putting this out there in case anyone is interested. I'm not recommending these guys or trashing them, just telling about what I did. They have a free service though, but you have to use their hostnames and you have to verify each month. I didn't want to do that because to me it's the same as my IP address switching every month so I bought one of their services.

 

[MysticCow]

My ISP (Suddenlink) has web hosting like Cox, but you just set it and forget it.

Since I can use it without any real hassle, I never checked to see if I was a static or dynamic IP. I might want to check that sometime if I ever want to web host at home...

 

[eyoungren]

My ISP (Suddenlink) has web hosting like Cox, but you just set it and forget it.

Since I can use it without any real hassle, I never checked to see if I was a static or dynamic IP. I might want to check that sometime if I ever want to web host at home...

Yeah, my problem is that each Time Machine disk is set to a certain IP address (the AFP port in my router is open). As long as the IP address does not change I can connect and file share from outside the house and backup via TM.

When Cox changes the IP, I don't often know until I try to connect or TM tells me it couldn't mount the TM disk. Then I have to go and find the new IP, mount the TM disk and redirect the TM disk.

It's much easier this way as noip.com keeps track of my IP and just redirects the domain to it.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Around 2006 I had a Buffalo NAS containing my iTunes and Movie libraries, it featured a IP service that would point my ever changing IP to a static address.
In theory it was amazingly cool to have access to my music and movies wherever I was - in practice, the connectivity was so bad in those days streaming was barely possible.

I've never tried it but Subsonic do a similar "your media wherever you go" type of thing.

 

[Cory5412]

I have a business account with CenturyLink and 5 static IPs for mail, sharepoint, vpn, etc.

CenturyLink/Qwest will let you buy a static IP (and open 25 if you're feeling adventurous, I recommend against it unless you REALLY know what you're doing and are running recent releases of server software that get patches) on home service. Their server wording in the consumer/residential terms of service is pretty vague. As far as I can tell, they don't really care unless you start providing high-volume services to other people.

I'm on business to make it more legit, and to get rid of the quota.

 

[eyoungren]

Still enjoying Time Machine backups from anywhere!

*Note the WiFi network. I'm at Colados, my usual coffee place.

 

[zappaesque]

Around 2006 I had a Buffalo NAS containing my iTunes and Movie libraries, it featured a IP service that would point my ever changing IP to a static address.
In theory it was amazingly cool to have access to my music and movies wherever I was - in practice, the connectivity was so bad in those days streaming was barely possible.

I've never tried it but Subsonic do a similar "your media wherever you go" type of thing.

I use Subsonic myself. $12 a year to stream my entire music library to every device I own? A bargain in my book. Finding apps for older devices to stream your library requires some searching and experimentation, but they are out there. In fact, I use my iPad 1 with Subsonic (running an old version of the iSub app) at work, rather than my phone, due to the iPad's killer battery life. It destroys my Android phone within two hours, but I still have 80% battery life on the iPad after a 10 hour day.