LLRnet servers for NPLB

[IronBits]

There is the update delay to no-ip from the client side, then there is the DNS server updates that have to be pushed out globally, and that could take hours to complete.
ISP should not be changing his IP so much like either.
Gary, you should call your ISP for more options... and ask them why your IP is changing so often...

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

First of all, no, I don't have access to Gary's No-IP account, otherwise this would have been taken care of as soon as I'd noticed it.

As for a static IP: yes, one would definitely be helpful, but aren't those really expensive?

I'm not going to pay for something that I have no clue about. I'm so sick and tired of messing with this crap that I'm beside myself right now. I know I did everything right as instructed the other day:
1. I went to the no-IP site and changed the IP address to the new one at that time.
2. I downloaded the software to my Windows laptop as instructed by David that should TELL no-ip about any future IP address changes and everything looked good.

and now this!

Max, I'll send you the info. to my no-IP account right away. If the above is not correct then I don't want to know what is. You just deal with it. If you need to put the no-ip thing on Crunchford, be my guest.

Regardless of what we do, I'm sure it'll be wrong again sometime in the future, either because of something I did or because some new feature or software that comes out that invalidates it.

I now remember why I was never interested in the P.C./server programming industry despite being in programming for nearly 15 years. There's just too much information that is constantly changing to keep up with.

Max, please have Carlos set up a server for the the k=1005-2000 for n=350K-352K effort. I refuse to risk anything on my servers for such an important effort.

We also should probably consider having David set up a new server for this k=800-1001 range and only use servers on my machines for personal efforts.

Ian, sorry about the problems again on port 4000.

Please excuse my rant everyone but I had to get it off my chest.


Gary

[IronBits]

Don't get frustrated Gary. It's how the IP game works.
For those that want/need critical uptime connections, you need a static IP, or an ISP that doesn't change it so often.

Just call your ISP, or visit there website and look into how much it would cost to get a fixed IP address assigned.

I certainly don't have a problem with opening up another useful server port for NPLB either.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

I'm not going to pay for something that I have no clue about. I'm so sick and tired of messing with this crap that I'm beside myself right now. I know I did everything right as instructed the other day:
1. I went to the no-IP site and changed the IP address to the new one at that time.
2. I downloaded the software to my Windows laptop as instructed by David that should TELL no-ip about any future IP address changes and everything looked good.

Hmm...you're saying you put it on your laptop? Given that, I just want to verify a couple things here:

-Is the laptop on 24/7?
-Is it connected to your home network? (Not, for example, a neighbor's unsecured wireless network that it just happened to pick because, say, it came earlier in alphabetical order? )

Also, it's probably not good to have it on your laptop since, when you take it on a business trip with you, it will then start reporting your hotel internet connection's IP to No-IP--which will then throw off the servers because everybody's clients will be pointing to the hotel instead.

Anyway, as soon as I receive your No-IP login info I'll get the client popped onto crunchford. At that point, I'd recommend that you *remove* the client from your laptop--otherwise it will mess things up every time you go on a business trip.

In other words: the IP update seems to have taken root, and the server stuff is all back online.

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Hmm...you're saying you put it on your laptop? Given that, I just want to verify a couple things here:

-Is the laptop on 24/7?
-Is it connected to your home network? (Not, for example, a neighbor's unsecured wireless network that it just happened to pick because, say, it came earlier in alphabetical order? )

Also, it's probably not good to have it on your laptop since, when you take it on a business trip with you, it will then start reporting your hotel internet connection's IP to No-IP--which will then throw off the servers because everybody's clients will be pointing to the hotel instead.

Anyway, as soon as I receive your No-IP login info I'll get the client popped onto crunchford. At that point, I'd recommend that you *remove* the client from your laptop--otherwise it will mess things up every time you go on a business trip.

In other words: the IP update seems to have taken root, and the server stuff is all back online.

OK, everyone I'm calmer now. lol

No. It's on my Windows desktop. Sorry...my bad. Even with my lack of P.C./server skills, I knew a laptop would be a poor choice.

My desktop is on 24x7 I think but could it be that I had yet another internet blip that caused the I.P. address to change? I don't get it. Could it be the blasted Windows updates that it keeps popping up a message for me to download? I will update it about every 2 weeks in an attempt to avoid viruses but it always requires a restart. Could that be the problem?

David, my I.P. address obviously hasn't changed in months until just now when it changed twice in the last week. Asking my provider why it changes so much would not be the right question? It hadn't changed at all until the last week.

I suppose I could try calling them but I'm sure they'll start in with a bunch of computereze mumbo-jumbo that will mean little to me. What can I do? Tell them to stop changing my IP address? lol I'll try that if you think it will help.


Gary

[IronBits]

Hang in there Gary...

On a positive note, the automation of the fetching of your stats and importing your .csv and mine for both ports, into the new nplb database went off without a hitch tonight.

Let me know if you see anything going south with the data...

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

I suppose I could try calling them but I'm sure they'll start in with a bunch of computereze mumbo-jumbo that will mean little to me. What can I do? Tell them to stop changing my IP address? lol I'll try that if you think it will help.

Nah, they'll probably just tell you that residential accounts aren't designed to be running servers and that you should instead pay $$$ for their business plan to get a static IP. Of course, a lot of that's just because they'd rather have you pay extra for the business plan.

Anyway, I installed the No-IP client on crunchford and set it to update every 5 minutes. Well see how that works out next time your IP changes. I'm hoping that it will update quickly so that any downtime will be for no more than a couple minutes at most (which shouldn't be a big deal for any clients).

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Nah, they'll probably just tell you that residential accounts aren't designed to be running servers and that you should instead pay $$$ for their business plan to get a static IP. Of course, a lot of that's just because they'd rather have you pay extra for the business plan.

Anyway, I installed the No-IP client on crunchford and set it to update every 5 minutes. Well see how that works out next time your IP changes. I'm hoping that it will update quickly so that any downtime will be for no more than a couple minutes at most (which shouldn't be a big deal for any clients).

To everyone: I've given Max my no-IP info. so a computer-competent person can view it if needed. lol


Max,

As stated in the PM, I still can't get on the web page you set up from both a Linux and a Window's machine. Any thoughts? I haven't tried actually running a test on port 4000 yet.

One more thing, in the PM you said we could keep the no-IP thingy on the Windows desktop and the Linux machine. Wouldn't that confuse matters? Shouldn't the IP address at no-IP be the one that is on the Linux machine for one of them and the Windows machine for the other? How does that work?

For your reference to Crunchford's IP address, I'm typing this message from it right now.


Gary

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

To everyone: I've given Max my no-IP info. so a computer-competent person can view it if needed. lol


Max,

As stated in the PM, I still can't get on the web page you set up from both a Linux and a Window's machine. Any thoughts? I haven't tried actually running a test on port 4000 yet.

One more thing, in the PM you said we could keep the no-IP thingy on the Windows desktop and the Linux machine. Wouldn't that confuse matters? Shouldn't the IP address at no-IP be the one that is on the Linux machine for one of them and the Windows machine for the other? How does that work?

For your reference to Crunchford's IP address, I'm typing this message from it right now.


Gary

Pardon my total ignorance but all of my computers are yielding the same I.P. address now. I've typed 3 messages from 3 different computers tonight, my laptop, windows desktop, and linux crunchford. All are the same. I seem to remember them being different among the machines before.

I know, I know, more explaining to the uneducated. lol


Gary

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

Pardon my total ignorance but all of my computers are yielding the same I.P. address now. I've typed 3 messages from 3 different computers tonight, my laptop, windows desktop, and linux crunchford. All are the same. I seem to remember them being different among the machines before.

I know, I know, more explaining to the uneducated. lol


Gary

First off: this is because on each internet-connected network, there are *two* sets of IP addresses to be dealt with: public ones, and private ones.

You have one cable modem connecting your network to the internet; it has one public IP address, which currently is 76.92.239.55. This is "dynamic" meaning that your ISP can change this at whim. I say "at whim" because--depending on circumstances--it may change 5 times a day, or it may change once every 6 months. (Okay, I'm sort of exaggerating on the low end there--rarely do you ever see dynamic IP's change 5 times a day--but, I'm sure you get the picture. ) Often, this will change if you've had to unplug your modem or router for a period of time, though sometimes your ISP will change it more often (as has been happening to you during the last few days).

Meanwhile, on the "inside" of your network, each of your computers--including your router--has a private IP address. These are the ones we were messing with a while back when we configured the remote desktop--192.168.2.1 for your router, 192.168.2.100 for crunchford, etc. Your Windows machines have dynamic private IP's, meaning that your router can change them at "whim", though in actual practice, unless you have one or more of your computers turned off for an extended period of time, these rarely change. Note that whereas with public IP addresses, they are generally dynamic unless you pay extra to get a static one, with private IP addresses, you can have as many static ones as you want, for free. That's why the IP addresses of your quads always remain the same, thus ensuring that we can easily connect to them without losing track of where they are. We could easily do the same with your Windows machines, though it's not necessary since we aren't connecting to any of them.

When you connect to the internet from any machine on your network, it talks to your router, which holds both the private IP of 192.168.2.1 and the public IP of 76.92.239.55. Because it holds both a private and a public IP, it can act as a bridge between the internal network, and the external network (that is, the Internet). Thus, any connections to the Internet from within the network are routed through your router, and thus all apear to come from the IP address 76.92.239.55, regardless of what internal IP they originated from. And, of course, since mersenneforum.org is not within your internal network, it sees everything from your network as coming from 76.92.239.55.

Does this make any sense? I'm writing this at 3:11 A.M. so if this is gibberish, don't give up.

Max

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Does this make any sense? I'm writing this at 3:11 A.M. so if this is gibberish, don't give up.

Max

Actually it makes total sense because I was already aware of the difference that you are talking about. (sorry you explained something I mostly understood already) I just didn't know that one was called "public" and the other "private" so that part helped.

Here is what I mean: On the little computers that us admins can see on each post, I am aware that that is the public IP address. But I am almost certain that I remember those IP addresses being different for different machines that I have used on the same day.

Now that I think it through though and with your lengthy explanation, I think I may know why that happened previously. It's because I typed many messages from out of town on my laptop. That means I'm connected to the hotel's or apartment's internet connection and possibly have a different public IP address. (That's why I never did the no-IP thing on my laptop...would have been a very bad thing! lol)

Would being out of town and connected to a different network cause my laptop to have a different public IP address?

Thanks for the great explanation! :-)


Gary