When your dynamic IP changes...

[Forrest Aldrich]

For the most part, my cable system stays on 24x7, thus my IP address 
remains the same (often for the duration of a year).  However there are 
times when unpredictable things happen, such as outages, that will cause 
your IP to change.

I have a number of internal and external dependencies that rely upon 
this IP address.  For the most part, I've not had to change these much - 
however, when it happens, it's a PITA.

- ipfw rules
- mysql tables
- apache configuration
- /etc/hosts
- named.conf (possibly)

and more.  Including needing to update external DNS, which could be 
addressed by using a dyndns.org name, and set your DNS to that hostname.

I could whip up a script using M4 to dynamically change the ipfw rules 
and point /etc/rc.conf to a different script.

I'm curious if anyone else has come up with a nifty scheme to make this 
less painful when it happens -- other than the obvious idea of getting a 
provider that supports fixed IP addresses ;-)

Someone suggested to me the GNU CFEngine, too -- seems a bit complex for 
this task, though.



Thanks...