dynamicIP

• Keep your leased address alive
• Publish your leased address
• Taskbar appplication and full on screen progress

Please contact us and let us know what you think

new in version 2

dynamicIP is now more co-operative and can be set to restart your system when the network is lost.

Features include:

• Background threaded upload to the FTP site - better performance
• Support for PASV mode (works better with a firewall)
• Auto start and system restart option

What is dynamicIP

So you've paid for an ADSL connection, fast Internet, always on BUT - the IP address they provide is dynamic. Great! You get high-speed internet access but every time the line drops, you get a new internet address.

DynamicIP allows you to use your dynamic service like a static service. DynamicIP runs on your gateway machine:

• Keeping your connection up by Pinging and connecting through FTP
• Writing your leased address to an upload page
• Publishing the upload page to your hosted site

Why use DynamicIP

I pay BT for an ADSL line but I chose not to pay extra for the business service (an extra £120 a year). Unfortunately, the basic service only provides me with a dynamic address. Greate but BT keep dropping the service so, even if I keep my server on, the line drops and I get a new address on average, every 4 days. So what can I do...

DynamicIP provides the solution. Running dynamicIP on my server machine, dynamicIP ensures that my leased address is kept alive every minute of the day. But the line can still be pulled by my service provider and anyway, keeping the address up is no good if I don't know what it is...

DynamicIP also gets hold of the dynamic address and published this address. You provide a template web page and a place to publish (your web site, FTP server, free web space, etc). Every 5 minutes, dynamicIP picks up you leased address, writes this to the template file and via FTP, uploads the template file. So no matter where you are, you can link to your home host - even if BT pulls the connection.

Using dynamicIP

dynamicIP is simple to use task bar application. After installation, you will have to set up dynamicIP - this is done the first time you run the application. On running you are presented with the program's main screen:

taskbar application

Once running, dynamicIP can be hidden from view. Notice the dynamicIP icon in your task bar:

• The icon changes to reflect the running state of dynamicIP:
  • Red Icon when an error is detected.
  • Yellow icon when loading and unloading
  • Blue icon when running
• Double click this icon and dynamicIP will restore its window.
• Right click this icon to display the icon menu for:
  • Showing the main window and
  • Exiting dynamicIP

Settings

Setting	Description
FTP Site	Address of your public hosted FTP site. It is to this site that your template file will be uploaded, once modified with to reflect your dynamic IP address.
PASV Mode	Select this mode of FTP if you are running over a firewall.
User	Your user name at your ftp site
Password	Your password at your ftp site
Upload	Your upload address (where your web pages are put) on your ftp site
Template	Location of your template file (on your local system).
Network Device	Lists your local network devices, including your dial up adaptor. Select the device you use to connect to the internet.
Startup and OnError	Sets the start up and action taken when a network error occurs. The default is "No auto start" and "No action" on error. For automatic handling, select "Reboot and Auto Start".

Running

Once you have set up the initial parameters, click the 'Start' button to start the polling and upload process. Every refresh period (initially this is every 5 minutes but you can change this from the menu), dynamicIP updates your template file with the current leased address and uploads the template file to your FTP site.

Menu Options

The menu bar on the main window gives you control over the refresh period and allows you to register the application.

Refresh Period
By default, the refresh period is set to 300 seconds (5 minutes). The refresh period can be changed to any number of seconds.

The Template File

This file is a standard web page (HTML or server side page). However, the file also contains some dynamicIP specific HTML tags. These tags are substituted with current local information before the file is uploaded to your site.

The following table describes these tags

An example of a simple template file (example.htm) is shown below:

<html> <head> <META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="120;URL=example.htm"> <META HTTP-EQUIV="EXPIRES" CONTENT="120;URL=example.htm"> <title>lowrieWeb</title> </head> <BODY onLoad=window.setTimeout("location.href='example.htm'",120000)><br> <h1>Example template file</h1> <P>Click <a href="http://<address>/default.htm">here for a demo</a></P> <table border="1" width="100%"> <tr> <td align="middle">Last Updated <date>:<time><b>by dynamicIP</b></td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>

The example above contains the tags <address>, <date> and <time> and the page is design to expire and reload every 2 minutes. The address supplied refers back to a hosted site on your home server.