How well to those "Ping Programs" (i.e. FreePing) work? Any downsides?

[MichaelD]

In my never-ending quest to setup a FTP/Webserver on my DSL connection, I visited dslwebserver.com/ and started reading up on ways to get around my Dynamic IP addy, which changes every hour, or just flat out "drops" to 0.0.0.0 after about 10 minutes of inactivity.

I have talked to SWBell about this and their reply "you have a Dynamic IP and as long as you have service, then you are fine." Bah. :|

I don't want to pay another $25/mo just for a static IP if there's a way around it. My upload speed is decent. My GF gets 16kb/s from me and she's on a different ISP...not bad. 🙂

Dslwebserver recommends a freeware utility called FreePing which supposedly pings whatever IP you want at whatever intervals you want. They have another piece of software which will load FreePing as a service, so it's always up on your server.

Supposedly, this will cure my Dynamic IP Woes.

What I want to know is: have any of you had experience w/FreePing? Good? Bad? Anything I should know about? I'm not really worried about pissing SWBell off, as I've been thinking of switching to Roadrunner cable anyway...$10/mo cheaper, same speeds and right now they have a free/modem, first 3 months 1/2 price deal going.

Thanks in advance for your sage advice.

 

[vi edit]

Why not use something like dydns or Dns2go to automatically update your site to register your dynamic IP?

 

[MichaelD]

Good morning vi_edit. I briefly looked into those. I am under the impression that you have to manually tell them that your IP is changed, and then it takes a few days for them to resolve your new IP to your DNS name they gave you. Am I incorrect?

See, if there's no traffic between me and my ISP (SWBell), they drop my IP completely (0.0.0.0). When I either open email, or start navigation to an internet site, they re-establish my connection and I get a new IP. Sucks, doesn't it? :|

So, unless I'm missing something (entirely possbile) a DNS service like DynDNS.org doesn't benefit me, unfortunately. Trying this constant-ping thing is my last resort before shelling out the money for a static IP.

 

[vi edit]

I'm almost certain that DNS 2 Go has a client that runs in the background monitoring your IP status. When it detects a change, it automatically changes the DNS records to point to the right place.

 

[MichaelD]

That would be cool. I'll check it out. Thanks, bud.

 

[JW310]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Good morning vi_edit. I briefly looked into those. I am under the impression that you have to manually tell them that your IP is changed, and then it takes a few days for them to resolve your new IP to your DNS name they gave you. Am I incorrect?

Yes and no... the static IP DNS services offered usually take a few hours to update, but if you use the dynamic IP DNS service that they provide, the changes are nearly instantaneous. I suppose that still doesn't solve the problem of losing your IP address altogether with a lack of activity. I think a combination of a program such as FreePing to keep an active connection to the net, and a dynamic DNS service (with the software to automatically update their servers when your IP address changes) is probably your best bet. Either that or just drop your DSL and go with cable... hopefully your IP address won't change as often.

JW

 

[MichaelD]

Thank you, JW310. I was thinking along the same lines; the ping proggy to keep the connection alive used in combination w/the Dynamic IP updater program for when it does change. Thanks for your reply.