Utility: Daily Restart, Dynamic to Static IP ...

[biometrics]

Subject: Telkom ADSL Router Utility: Daily Restart, Dynamic to Static IP Address Convertor, ADSL Usage Stats

Hi,

ADSL was recently launched in South Africa and we've been using it since January. Our ISP is Telkom and in their wisdom they decided that ADSL IP addresses needs to be reset every 24 hours meaning that you can't run a web server on it.

We've written a utility to solve that. From the Read Me file:

A. BEFORE YOU START

This utility works with the Telkom ADSL Router. It's labelled "ADSL Router Pots" and is a flat beige hub-sized unit. It's manufactured by Marconi. This utility has not been designed for the Alcatel ADSL modem or any other third party ADSL modems.


B. INTRODUCTION

Though the ADSL router can automatically dial up to the internet, Telkom resets the IP address every 24 hours. This requires one to manually restart the router or to connect to it via a web browser, log in and restart it.

This utility will automatically restart the router every 24 hours at the specified time.

The routers external IP address is determined and uploaded to a specified web site. Using the supplied Update.asp and Redirect.asp combined with a free ASP (Active Server Page) host such as 7Host.com your ADSL line effectively is changed from a dynamic IP address to a static IP address. Try the sample: http://free.7host01.com/adslrouter/Redirect.asp

For a short URL use tinyurl.com. Use http://tinyurl.com/dp5c for http://free.7host01.com/adslrouter/Redirect.asp

Your ADSL usage is retrieved from the Telkom ADSL Usage web site http://adsl.telkomsa.net.


C. INSTALLATION

Run the setupkit, Biometrics.co.za Telkom ADSL Router Restart.EXE, and select all the default prompts. After installation run the utility from the Start/Programs/Biometrics.co.za Telkom ADSL Router Restart menu. Enter your ADSL routers IP address, administrator user name and password. For ADSL usage data you also need to enter your Telkom ADSL user name and password.

Click the Update button and the utility will download and upload.

An Update happens every 10 minutes.

Picture: http://www.biometrics.co.za/ADSLRouterUtility.jpg

We are releasing it as shareware. Feel free to add it as a free utility on your web site. Our FTP server is ftp://ftp.biometrics.co.za and the file name is "Biometrics.co.za_Telkom_ADSL_Router_Restart.EXE". It's 3.60 MB.

Let us know what you think ...

 

[pdos]

Hi Peter,
a very interesting post, it sounds like what I want, but first I need to clear up my understanding of it.

Is this correct?

1) You sign up for a (free) service at 7host.com
2) Register your domain and point it via DNS to your site at 7host.com
3) There you have a redirect utility that takes incoming requests
3) this redirects you to your server on your adsl line
4) at intervals you refresh your remote redirect utility with your local dynamic ip address.

Is there any slow down as a result of this extra step?
Are you running your Biometrics site in this way?

By the way, what you are doing with biometrics is fascinating.
Now I want such a system inexpensive enough to fit to my front door at home
Just think, I need never be locked out again

 

[cubehre]

How does this compare with No-IP and other dynamic DNS services?

I've tried No-IP, but my IP changes many times during the day - once 3 times in 60mins and I'm sorry but I just don't know to make this stop long enough for a Dynamic DNS to keep up...[B)]

 

[biometrics]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Is this correct?

1) You sign up for a (free) service at 7host.com
2) Register your domain and point it via DNS to your site at 7host.com
3) There you have a redirect utility that takes incoming requests
3) this redirects you to your server on your adsl line
4) at intervals you refresh your remote redirect utility with your local dynamic ip address.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Your assumptions are correct. I'm just not sure if you can have a DNS entry to a URL like http://free.7host01.com/adslrouter/Redirect.asp.

As there will be a time when you are not online (it takes my router 10 minutes to re-sync after a restart) I didn't really think people would run mission critical web servers, but rather hobbies or home based businesses. In which case a URL like http://tinyurl.com/dp5c wouldn't be to horrible. Btw http://tinyurl.com/dp5c = http://free.7host01.com/adslrouter/Redirect.asp.

Currently the utility updates every 10 minutes (overkill). It uploads the current IP address to the specified server via the Update.asp. Redirect.asp is used to redirect your HTTP request to your IP address.

For your info here is the .ASP's:

Update.asp:

&lt;%
If Request.QueryString("Password") = "12345" Then
Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
Dim fso, f, IPAddress
IPAddress = Request.QueryString("IPAddress")
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set f = fspenTextFile(Server.MapPath("IP Address.txt"), ForWriting, True)
f.WriteLine IPAddress
f.Close
Response.Write "IP Address updated to " & IPAddress & ". Click &lt;a href=http://" & IPAddress & "&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; to test the IP Address."
Else
Response.Write "Access denied."
End If
%&gt;

Redirect.asp:

&lt;%
Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
Dim fso, f, IPAddress
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set f = fspenTextFile(Server.MapPath("IP Address.txt"), ForReading, True)
IPAddress = f.ReadLine
f.Close
Response.Redirect "http://" & IPAddress
%&gt;

One thing I still need to figure out is how to get the Marconi to forward port 80 requests to an IP address on your LAN. The documentation is very poor and my router knowledge is limited. It may be the "PAT Parameter" or "Static Route Parameter" ... Any router experts that can help us out?

Wishlist:
1. Rather than resetting every 24 hours, make it an interval (Telkom still manages to crash my router once a week)
2. Ping to see if a reset is required
3. NT service option

Hopefully Telkom won't block port 80 incoming requests. If so you can always change your web server to port 8080 or something.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Is there any slow down as a result of this extra step?
Are you running your Biometrics site in this way?

By the way, what you are doing with biometrics is fascinating.
Now I want such a system inexpensive enough to fit to my front door at home
Just think, I need never be locked out again
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

There is a slight delay while connecting to 7Host. But it's pretty fast. I have noticed overloads on their server at night (USA daytime) where it failed to run the .asp. During our day time it has always worked though. The delay is equivalent of connecting to two sites excluding a page load on the first. 7Host normally spews out popup ads but for some reason the Response.Redirect eliminates that. Don't tell them [].

Our web server is not at the office on the ADSL line. As mentioned above Telkom still manages to crash our router once a week, so until I get it running 24x7 I will have to wait before running our web server on the ADSL line.

As to Biometrics, currently all our solutions require a Windows PC. We will be launching our stand-alone unit in the next month ...

 

[biometrics]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by cubehre</i>
<br />How does this compare with No-IP and other dynamic DNS services?

I've tried No-IP, but my IP changes many times during the day - once 3 times in 60mins and I'm sorry but I just don't know to make this stop long enough for a Dynamic DNS to keep up...[B)]
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Not sure how these services work. Do they require some utility to run on your PC's as well?

Our utility currently uploads the IP address every 10 minutes.

 

[Cobus]

I use DNS2go and it works very well. I have noticed during the last two weeks that the Telkom DNS servers does not always update immediately. I suspect that they are trying to hamper the functioning of these services.

I currently host 4 different domains with web services and smtp services. I never get to my CAP exept once when a file that was about 450Mb in size had to be downloaded 4 times as it was corrupted everytime. After the fourth try it was working. I have determined that the ADSL services was corrupting the download, as I asked a friend at one of the Universities to download the file, and they had no problems whatsoever.

I only use ADSL for business purposes, and not for games.

I also believe that Telkom is blatantly lying to the ADSL community on a regular basis of why they are introducing certain limits, or why they cannot provide certain services.

They always had an INCREDIBLE LACK of business sense when dealing with their customers. ADSL is the one thing that can help small businesses to grow very quickly, but the way Telkom wants us to use ADSL will eventually become detrimental to the development of new businesses in this country.

The leadership in that organisation will just NEVER wake up.

 

[pdos]

Hi Cobus,
I am heartened to see that there is a work-around to the dynamic ip problem.
did you have to enable port forwarding on your adsl router?

Did you compare dns2go with other services such as no-ip and dyndns?

 

[pdos]

Hi Cobus,
Just had a look at the configuration of my POTS router. It is not at all clear how to do port forwarding.
How did you do it?