Need Automation But Long Time Since Programmed

[jerrydebi]

I'll try to be brief. I need to automate retrieving IP from a work (actually church) PC and emailing to me. It's been a long time since I coded anything. Do you know a place where I can pick up some ready-to-use app that will retrieve the IP and email it? Something I can pass some params to.
Requirements: Host is running XP Pro. No particular e-mail client installed yet.

[AboveTheLogic]

I assume you mean the Internet IP?

I don't know about the emailing part, but if you use no-ip.com with their dynamic updater program (all free), then you can log into your account there and always see what the IP is on the PC that is running the updater


...not sure if that helps you...

...maybe set your email client to send you a periodic email to remind you to log in and check it lol

[jerrydebi]

Hmm. Let me add that I'm using the terminal services web client to log in to the church PC remotely. To do this I need to know the internet IP of the church router. So as long as the Internet IP address on the church router doesn't change I am ok.
The problem is for some reason the router periodically releases the dynamic IP assigned to it by the ISP and then attains a new one. Once that happens I have to schlep over to the church, login on that PC, run whatismyip.com, record the new Internet IP address.
Trust me when I say I've exhausted ability to get router to store static IP. (Installed UPS, labeled so no one unplugs, checked config for options).
I want to run some app on the church PC to have it periodically check it's internet IP and then email that to me at my home.

[wimiadmin]

If you sign up for a free account at www.no-ip.com and install their application on the computer, the applicatioin will update no-ip periodically (probably once every 10 minutes or so) with the IP address of the computer.

When you're off site and can't log into the PC, you know the IP has probably changed. At that point, log in to your account at no-ip and check the updated status of the changed IP address.

In other words, the no-ip app is like you sitting at the computer going to whatismyip.com and getting the IP and storing it somewhere on the net for authorized users to see.

Brian

[clanmills]

Guys

I've been on vacation and missed this thread. I agree with Brian on this one. I have never used no-ip.com, however I do use DynDNS.com and I believe their service is similar. You can register a new name with them. Something like mychurch.homedns.org and leave the client software running on the church machine. It's free!

Now your church machine is 'public' on the internet. Whenever it changes its IP address, it'll tell DynDns.org. So you connect to mychurch.homedns.org and leave the IP fiddling to the machine!

I wrote an article about this some time ago (and in fact, that's when I discovered whatismyip.com and met Brian). http://www.clanmills.com/articles/portforwarding/

If you really want code to send you an email every 10 minutes, I could probably be persuaded to write that for you in Perl (or Python) this weekend. Let me know. However I think using a service such as DynDNS.com is simpler because:
1) you don't need to write/debug any code.
2) you're not going to receive 144 emails every day from the church!
(I'd optimize that of course so that it only emails when the IP changes).

Robin

[jerrydebi]

I setup an account at no-ip and downloaded the client updater. Looks like everything is set. Thanks again for all your help.