I wasn’t really down…

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on April 19, 2001). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Okay, for any of you who might be interested, here’s the deal. I run my own webserver here at home, and my ‘net connection is provided through GCI‘s cable modem service. Technically, this is a dynamic IP service — my IP address (the four-part number that is the true address of a computer on the ‘net) isn’t permanently assigned to me, and can change every time I establish a new ‘net connection. However, as cable modem service has very little downtime, my ‘dynamic’ IP is almost static — if I don’t have any downtime, then the IP doesn’t change.

It’s because of the dynamic nature of my IP address that I haven’t yet gone for a better web address — i.e., something along the lines of www.djwudi.com or some such — registering for one of those generally requires having a permanent, dedicated IP. Instead, I go through the services provided by www.dyndns.org. This free service allows me to have my djwudi.dyndns.org address, and all I have to do is put the current IP of my webserver into their database.

Occasionally, however, my IP will change — which is what happened today. I’m not sure why my IP suddenly reset today, there was no actual downtime that I’m aware of, and I would have expected it to change when my cable modem was actually disconnected a week ago, but it didn’t. In any case, as soon as I saw that things weren’t working I put the new IP into the database, but it took a few hours for it to propagate through the system. However, between the time I started typing this and now, it’s made it through, so all should be good from here on out…at least, until the next time GCI decides to kick my IP.