# Publishing IP address **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 10, 2006, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849 "2006-02-10T12:34:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/1 "2006-02-10T12:34:37Z")
I have an ftp server running on my ADSL line which has a dynamic IP address. It doesn’t change all that often but when it does I have a dynamic-name (no-ip) that updates whenever it detects a change. So the address [ptegan.myftp.org](http://ptegan.myftp.org) always points to my ftp server. The problem is that for some weird reason, my brother is with an ISP that doesn’t return any result when he pings [ptegan.myftp.org](http://ptegan.myftp.org) I tried signing up with another service (DynIP - Dynamic DNS Service) and the same result, he can’t ping my address while everyone else can. My question is this, is there a way I can display my current IP address in a webpage or via MSN/Yahoo to allow my brother to see it, without having to resort to a dynamic DNS service which don’t seem to work for him ? Either that or a different solution would be welcome 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![c\_goat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@c\_goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_goat)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/2 "2006-02-10T14:22:09Z")
Are you sure it’s the DNS that’s the problem? Can he connect to the FTP server using the IP address only? A ‘ping’ might be blocked due to his ISP filtering/blocking certain things. Something he can try is to open a command prompt, run “nslookup”, and then enter your addres “[ptegan.myftp.org](http://ptegan.myftp.org)”. If it returns the right IP, then the problem isn’t with the DNS, and lies somewhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/3 "2006-02-10T14:26:17Z")
He can connect to the server using just the IP address. He can ping my actual IP address when I call him to give it to him. He can’t ping [ptegan.myftp.org](http://ptegan.myftp.org) ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/4 "2006-02-10T15:09:02Z")
To answer your question, it’s possible, but I don’t know of a simple tool to do it. Essentially, the task breaks down into two or maybe three parts. 1. retrieving the current IP address. Doing an IPconfig command - maybe streaming the results to a text file can do this. 2. Posting the address somewhere that your friend can see it. I’m not sure if messengers allow any way to do this manually. If you have a webspace you might be able to rig up an FTP transfer to it. 3. Automating steps 1 and 2 so that they’ll happen on a regular schedule. Hope that helps. ---
**Author:** ![c\_goat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@c\_goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_goat)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/5 "2006-02-10T15:51:45Z")
Wow, that is weird. Since you’re talking about him needing to manually go to a website to find out the IP, why not just find a site that will perform their own DNS lookup. A google search for “DNS lookup” turns up this site, which will let him enter and address and get the IP (top right box). Probably easier than setting up your own site. ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/6 "2006-02-10T15:57:12Z")
Sexy stuff c\_goat ! Using this link : [http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?name=ptegan.myftp.org&type=A](http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?name=ptegan.myftp.org&type=A) Will enable him to always know what the IP is 🙂 Thanks to you and chrisk for your help 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/7 "2006-02-10T16:41:10Z")
Using a third party DNS lookup service as has been suggested will _work_, but if I were having this problem I’d really want to fix the problem, as there’s undoubtedly many more sites that are failing to resolve. The general causes of such problems are improper DNS settings on the local PC, some sort of malware munging up lookups, or (less likely but still possible) badly managed DNS servers at the ISP. ---
**Author:** ![squeekster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/779978/32.png) [@squeekster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeekster)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/8 "2006-02-10T17:03:46Z")
For whatever it may be worth, I tried pinging _[ptegan.myftp.org](http://ptegan.myftp.org)_ and got “request timed out” 4 times. I then set my firewall (Sygate Personal) to “allow all” and tried again. It pinged fine. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/9 "2006-02-11T16:46:58Z")
“Request timed out” indicates that your computer knew who it was trying to talk to, but wasn’t hearing back for some reason. Since in post 3 the OP indicates that pinging by IP address succeeds, I’d assume the error by name is “Unknown host”, indicating that the DNS resolution failed. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2006, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/10 "2006-02-12T15:16:44Z")
> [@Nanoda](#): > > “Request timed out” indicates that your computer knew who it was trying to talk to, but wasn’t hearing back for some reason. > > Since in post 3 the OP indicates that pinging by IP address succeeds, I’d assume the error by name is “Unknown host”, indicating that the DNS resolution failed. This is correct. Suggests it’s a firewall or router issue on the pinging PC. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2006, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/publishing-ip-address/343849/11 "2006-02-12T15:17:48Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > This is correct. Suggests it’s a firewall or router issue on the pinging PC. To clarify: If no one could ping the remote site, then it could easily be that the remote site’s firewall doesn’t respond to pings. But in this case other people can, so it’s something local to your friend.