Automatic external IP address detection

[Steven Sheehy]

Berlios Feature Request #4168: Automatic external IP address detection
https://developer.berlios.de/feature/index.php?func=detailfeature&feature_id=4168&group_id=2230

[Steven Sheehy (steven-sheehy)]

This type of development would have to be done in the core. We'd have to make the changes ourself and then hope upstream accepts our patch. Second, to implement autodetection is quite complex. Here are the steps Pidgin takes:

1) Try to retrieve it from a STUN server (e.g. stunserver.org, but we can't hardcode any stun server).
2) Try to detect via UPnP, which will require a lot of development to implement this on unix and add a library
dependency (libupnp).
3) Try to detect via PMP, which will require a lot of development also and add a library dependency (libnatpmp - which doesn't seem to be in many distributions).
4) Use the local IP if all else failed (we already do this).

Pidgin, for example, cannot detect my public IP using default settings even with all of its methods used to
automate the process.

[Sami Olmari (olmari)]

How about using MiniUPNPc code built in? more info about here: http://miniupnp.free.fr/

[Razzloss (razzloss)]

If upnp is implemented I'd rather add a dependency than a builtin library.

--RZ

[riptide (riptide)]

How about whatismyip.org or similar services?