Remote control dynamic IP

Developer's Corner General Dev Discussions
1

I plug VeraLite in my wifi router, and I set up program on the cloud server to constantly monitor Veralite.

But the problem is my home has dynamic IP, my IP always changes when my router restarts. Does anyone know whether I can program in VeraLite to send http request to my cloud server to report if IP has changed?

Thanks

2

There’s nothing specifically in Vera that will help you do this. But if your cloud server can be reached at a fixed location, and if you can get your Vera to periodically contact the cloud server, then the cloud server can examine the “from-address” (remote peer, to use the official terminology) and notice that the address has changed.

What I’ve described is essentially a reimplementation of a Dynamic DNS service, so why roll your own when there are tons of them already out there? See if your router knows how to update dynamic DNS all by itself. Then you need not involve Vera at all.

(It looks from your description that you have opened your Vera up to the Internet with port forwarding and are relying in Security Through Obscurity, or No Security At All as I call it, to prevent others finding your Vera. Really, don’t. Perhaps there’s a better way of doing what you set out to do. Let’s talk about it.)

3

Hi futzle, thanks for the reply

Yes. I just want a Dynamic DNS service, and I don’t know whether that could be done in VeraLite. I don’t want to program in router to do that.

I did use port forwarding to open Vera to Internet. Currently, I am not worried about Security issue, no one would like to hack into my home. Haha

If you know better way to do that, can you tell me about it?

4

It’s people who say that who are the ones that have been exploited by bots and who are unwittingly sending me spam. Really, really, don’t. It’s being a bad Internet citizen.

If you know better way to do that, can you tell me about it?

There is no Dynamic DNS client for Vera Lite, not without programming or sideloading packages. Is there another always-on machine in your house that can do the job (since you don’t want your router to do it)?

A lightweight alternative is to get your Vera to send an HTTP request to your cloud server (“I’m not dead yet”). Search the forum for the luup.inet.wget() function, which takes a URL as a parameter. Your cloud server will then only need to panic if it doesn’t get a regular heartbeat signal. I’ve no idea if this is appropriate to your situation; you haven’t said what you want to get out of this monitoring.

Edit: function name.

5

You can contact most DDNS servers to register your IP address from Vera with curl.
If you have a router it can probably contact the DDNS server and keep your domain name current.

I have a UNIX box that I have setup as an SSH server. I port forward to it (Securely) than tunnel through this secure link to access Vera on my local network.

If this sounds complicated … it is … that’s why MCV has setup a web portal that allows you to access Vera without having to worry about DDNS, Port forwarding, Security …

Well as long as MCV is not compromised …

6

Thanks guys. I will look into that.

Just out of curiosity, without port forwarding how is the web portal able to communicate with my VeraLite behind my router?

7

Vera dials out, rather than the portal dialling in. Once the connection is established, your router does automatic port forwarding for the duration of the connection. That’s part of how NAT works.

8

Hi, I was trying to set a scene that runs every 5 minutes to execute the command luup.inet.wget(). Does anyone know how to do an infinite loop like this?

Thanks

It’s people who say that who are the ones that have been exploited by bots and who are unwittingly sending me spam. Really, really, don’t. It’s being a bad Internet citizen.

If you know better way to do that, can you tell me about it?

There is no Dynamic DNS client for Vera Lite, not without programming or sideloading packages. Is there another always-on machine in your house that can do the job (since you don’t want your router to do it)?

A lightweight alternative is to get your Vera to send an HTTP request to your cloud server (“I’m not dead yet”). Search the forum for the luup.inet.wget() function, which takes a URL as a parameter. Your cloud server will then only need to panic if it doesn’t get a regular heartbeat signal. I’ve no idea if this is appropriate to your situation; you haven’t said what you want to get out of this monitoring.

Edit: function name.[/quote]

9

Can’t you just use the schedule tab in the scene editor and set it to 5 min. interval? Or are you trying to do something else?

10

Yes. I am using that now. thanks