Monthly Archives: August 2011

Maintain a running list of your external IP address

At home, I have a consumer level cable internet service.  I actually do not know if I have a dynamic IP address or a static IP address because I haven’t really cared enough to ask my ISP.  I would assume that I have a dynamic IP address since most ISPs charge a premium for a static IP address, but since I don’t know for sure I thought I would find out for myself.

Using http://whatismyip.com ‘s “automation” page, Perl, and cron, I am going to maintain a list of my external IP addresses.  Not only will this answer the original question, but I can also gather some additional information, such as how often my IP address changes and whether or not I can force my IP address to change by disconnecting my modem :).

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