ip not being updated and expiring

[Matt LaPlante]

Binary package hint: noip2

I've got the noip2 package installed and configured, but for the life of me I can't tell that it's doing anything. Every month I get an email from no-ip saying my hostname is expiring, so the app is clearly not updating my account.

I launch it with the -d flag, and all I get is this:

Sep 25 12:18:13 host noip2[17762]: v2.1.7 daemon started
Sep 25 12:18:13 host noip2[17762]: X.no-ip.com was already set to X.

Then, as far as I can tell, nothing. It's running, but the account still gets disabled montly.

[Avi Rozen (zungbang)]

Has your ISP, by any chance, assigned you a static IP?

[Matt LaPlante (cybrmatt)]

No, they've not. It is dynamic, although it goes several months at a time without changing. I would hope this doesn't matter. I've lived in several states, with different providers, and this has always been the case. For the noip2 package to be useful, I would expect it to be able to keep the account alive even when the IP has not changed.

[Avi Rozen (zungbang)]

Well, it seems that their policy is different [1].

[1] http://www.no-ip.com/support/faq/EN/general/hosts-pending-deletion.html

[Matt LaPlante (cybrmatt)]

Is there a different client that doesn't have this silly limitation?

There's nothing in their policy statement that says the client can't update the host within the given interval... only that its current behavior doesn't.

[Avi Rozen (zungbang)]

It does not seem to be a client limitation: the client can't update the host when the IP has not changed, because, apparently, the no-ip server does not allow it. That's at least how I read it.

The no-ip free service is limited this way.
Silly? maybe. Bug? hardly. It looks and smells deliberate.

I suggest you take this up with no-ip support.

Good luck.

[Matt LaPlante (cybrmatt)]

I'm fairly certain other services don't have this limitation. Thanks for your help in clarifying the problem!

[Avi Rozen (zungbang)]

Workaround - run the following in a cron job every 30 days (replace X and no-ip.com with the correct host and domain):

/usr/bin/wget -q -O - 'http://www.no-ip.com/hostactive.php?host=X&domain=no-ip.com'

[Doug Fultz (dougfultz)]

I recieve the same email. This is simply a reminder from No-Ip that you address has not changed in a certain amount of time. As long as you are still able to use your no-ip domain, this means that your ISP has not assigned you a different ip. Your domain hasn't been update because it hasn't changed, therefore it didn't need to update no-ip with a different IP. This is not a problem with the client and it is not a limitation with no-ip. They are just letting you know what is going on with your domain.

[Matt LaPlante (cybrmatt)]

Doug: Your assertion is not correct. At least for free accounts, they will remove the host if it is neither updated nor acknowledged via the web interface within the required interval. I stopped confirming my host following the resolution of this bug (moving to a different service), and they did in fact remove the host as promised.

As Avi pointed out, it is indeed not the fault of the client, but I would argue it most definitely is a limitation (or at very least an annoying requirement) of the service.

[Greg Copenhaver (greg-gcopenhaver)]

I've had the same problem. Avi Rozen's workaround works (in fact, the email I just received from no-ip.com contains a link in that format). I have a cable connection that generally doesn't change, but it's not static and can change without notice. It would be awful to be expecting it to have one ip address, but then changes at some point while I'm not home and I can't login remotely. Time to setup a cron job.