More camera headaches.
January 17, 2012 3:02 PM Subscribe
Is it possible to remotely access an Airport Extreme base station over the Internet to discover its IP address?
Somewhat related to this question, the IP camera I installed a few weeks ago is no longer visible over the Internet via dynamic DNS. The reason: My Airport Extreme's IP address was overwritten by a program, DynDNS Updater, that runs in the background and updates the router's address as needed.
How did this occur? Well, the updater program was running on my laptop not a kosher move, as I know now and picked up a local wifi hotspot's IP address and sent it to the Dynamic DNS server, which overwrote the original IP address!
But if I can track down my Airport Extreme's IP address I can edit my dynamic host and straighten things out. As it happens, I don't have any tech savvy friends who can break into my house and look it up for me, nor do I currently have my Airport Extreme configured in advance for Internet access, nor can I login to my home computers via an ssh session or the like.
I've looked at logs on the dynamic dns site and come up with nil (only the reconfigured IP addresses post-update). Is it remotely possible that my ISP might have the base station's IP address, or a way to access it?Any other ideas on how I might track down the required information--or, failing that, come up with an alternative plan to get my camera up and running again?
Somewhat related to this question, the IP camera I installed a few weeks ago is no longer visible over the Internet via dynamic DNS. The reason: My Airport Extreme's IP address was overwritten by a program, DynDNS Updater, that runs in the background and updates the router's address as needed.
How did this occur? Well, the updater program was running on my laptop not a kosher move, as I know now and picked up a local wifi hotspot's IP address and sent it to the Dynamic DNS server, which overwrote the original IP address!
But if I can track down my Airport Extreme's IP address I can edit my dynamic host and straighten things out. As it happens, I don't have any tech savvy friends who can break into my house and look it up for me, nor do I currently have my Airport Extreme configured in advance for Internet access, nor can I login to my home computers via an ssh session or the like.
I've looked at logs on the dynamic dns site and come up with nil (only the reconfigured IP addresses post-update). Is it remotely possible that my ISP might have the base station's IP address, or a way to access it?Any other ideas on how I might track down the required information--or, failing that, come up with an alternative plan to get my camera up and running again?
You want to know the IP address that your ISP is providing to your router? The IP address provided to the dyn DNS server was the only setting that was overwritten, right, not anything inside the Airport?
Tough one. I'm guessing you don't have "Back to my Mac" or anything like that. Do any of your home computers "call out" to services that would log the IP address? Have you logged into Gmail from home recently? Do you have Dropbox on those computer(s)?
posted by supercres at 3:11 PM on January 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
Tough one. I'm guessing you don't have "Back to my Mac" or anything like that. Do any of your home computers "call out" to services that would log the IP address? Have you logged into Gmail from home recently? Do you have Dropbox on those computer(s)?
posted by supercres at 3:11 PM on January 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
similarly, reddit will show you an "activity" window under your account settings, showing the last ~10 IPs you accessed it from
posted by Oktober at 3:14 PM on January 17, 2012
posted by Oktober at 3:14 PM on January 17, 2012
Is it remotely possible that my ISP might have the base station's IP address, or a way to access it? Any other ideas on how I might track down the required information
If you're after the IP of your house, the ISP might have it. I'd just log in to my account page, and poke around.
posted by pompomtom at 3:15 PM on January 17, 2012
If you're after the IP of your house, the ISP might have it. I'd just log in to my account page, and poke around.
posted by pompomtom at 3:15 PM on January 17, 2012
On that note, I wonder if the Mefi backend shows what IP address a question (like your previous one) was submitted from, or where a user has been logged in from. Might be worth an email to the mods.
posted by supercres at 3:17 PM on January 17, 2012
posted by supercres at 3:17 PM on January 17, 2012
Response by poster: Thanks to all for comments. supercress, running through the logs at Dropbox did the trick. Whew. Another bullet dodged!
posted by Gordion Knott at 3:22 PM on January 17, 2012
posted by Gordion Knott at 3:22 PM on January 17, 2012
Response by poster: I've disabled DynDNS Updater on my laptop, so it won't overwrite my base station's IP address again, no matter how many hotspots I visit (which will be few, because I'm trying to limit my Internet use to encrypted sessions over a portable Airport Express router).
But I don't have DynDNS Updater running on any other computers. Is it possible that an IP address change by my provider--which would presumably be picked up by DynDNS Updater running on a home computer 24/7--would render my camera invisible over the Internet again, and if so, how could I cope with this?
posted by Gordion Knott at 3:30 PM on January 17, 2012
But I don't have DynDNS Updater running on any other computers. Is it possible that an IP address change by my provider--which would presumably be picked up by DynDNS Updater running on a home computer 24/7--would render my camera invisible over the Internet again, and if so, how could I cope with this?
posted by Gordion Knott at 3:30 PM on January 17, 2012
I don't understand your follow-up, but I'm probably just being dense. If you're running DynDNS updater on a home computer, presumably it's connected to the same network as your IP camera, so they'll have the same "external" IP address. If your ISP refreshes your IP address, the updater should take notice (after some interval; mine's 15 minutes) and your domain would point to your new external IP. I don't think that make your camera invisible, beyond the bit of time before the DNS records update.
posted by supercres at 3:50 PM on January 17, 2012
posted by supercres at 3:50 PM on January 17, 2012
There's a special way to set up an Airport Extreme with DynDNS, with no need to run the updater on a computer. I've done it and it works. You need to pay for Dyn Standard service, though.
posted by zsazsa at 3:51 PM on January 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by zsazsa at 3:51 PM on January 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
DynDNS updater is not changing any setting on your router: it's checking the address of your router and using that to update the IP address that corresponds to a domain name somewhere else on the internet, which is like an index to your network's address.
Your router is simply using whatever IP address your ISP assigns it, which may change every few days or when the router is restarted. This is what a "dynamic" IP is, and this is the reason things like DynDNS are valuable.
But yes, they only work well when they're ON the network you wish to monitor, as you have learned.
If the script/thing you are running on the home network stays running, this is solid and you will be able to count on it. I use a service like that to route pretty much all my internet use through my home, even when I'm thousands of miles away. Works well, especially as I'm in a place that censors the hell out of the Internet right now.
posted by rokusan at 3:54 PM on January 17, 2012
Your router is simply using whatever IP address your ISP assigns it, which may change every few days or when the router is restarted. This is what a "dynamic" IP is, and this is the reason things like DynDNS are valuable.
But yes, they only work well when they're ON the network you wish to monitor, as you have learned.
If the script/thing you are running on the home network stays running, this is solid and you will be able to count on it. I use a service like that to route pretty much all my internet use through my home, even when I'm thousands of miles away. Works well, especially as I'm in a place that censors the hell out of the Internet right now.
posted by rokusan at 3:54 PM on January 17, 2012
(I should add that I also rely on this for several security-ish cameras, as you are attempting to do. It's been solid for years, now.)
posted by rokusan at 3:55 PM on January 17, 2012
posted by rokusan at 3:55 PM on January 17, 2012
Response by poster: I use a service like that to route pretty much all my internet use through my home, even when I'm thousands of miles away.
rokusan, what is the name of this service, if you're comfortable with revealing it in this space? Also, if the ISP changes the IP address, is it correct to assume that they're capable of giving it to me if I call them on the phone?
posted by Gordion Knott at 4:05 PM on January 17, 2012
rokusan, what is the name of this service, if you're comfortable with revealing it in this space? Also, if the ISP changes the IP address, is it correct to assume that they're capable of giving it to me if I call them on the phone?
posted by Gordion Knott at 4:05 PM on January 17, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Oktober at 3:09 PM on January 17, 2012