A tip for IRLP nodes that get dynamic IP addresses from their ISP

Problem: You have a home router and dynamic IP address service from your ISP. Because your IP address changes periodically, you cannot ssh into your node from the Internet. You would like to use ssh to control/administer your node from anywhere on the Internet. And a static IP address from your ISP is too expensive.

Solution: Get a domain (eg. whatever.com) and sign up for a dynamic DNS service. I have had good luck with free dynamic DNS service from www.zoneedit.com. No, I don't work for them or anything like that, but this service has made my life so much easier that I'm compelled to make sure all IRLP owners know about it.

After you sign up for service and follow the instructions about changing the nameservers for your domain, all you need to do is run this command to make sure your current IP address is sync'd to your domain:

lynx -source -auth=login:password 'http://dynamic.zoneedit.com/auth/dynamic.html?host=server.mydomain.com'

[that's all on one line]

I run this command once every 20 minutes (using cron) to keep the full hostname (irlp.blah.com) in sync with the numerical IP address.

Don't use the crontab belonging to the user 'repeater' because that crontab gets refreshed each night. I created a user 'donn' and that user's crontab looks like:

[donn@w6fyi donn]$ crontab -l
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall.
# (dcl_crontab installed on Mon Mar 17 10:45:38 2003)
# (Cron version -- $Id: crontab.c,v 2.13 1994/01/17 03:20:37 vixie Exp $)
SHELL=/bin/bash
TERM=xterm
*/20 * * * * (/home/donn/dcl_zoneedit > /dev/null 2>&1)

Where, dcl_zoneedit is just a small script with the lynx command:

[donn@w6fyi donn]$ cat dcl_zoneedit
#!/bin/bash
#Update my free dynamic DNS service with the linksys router's
#current IP address.
lynx -source -auth=login:password 'http://dynamic.zoneedit.com/auth/dynamic.html?host=irlp.blah.com'

And of course, I have to configure my Linksys router to forward the port # for ssh to my node/PC.