Re: DynDNS clients (was cron.hourly doesn't run)

[Hall Stevenson <hallstevenson@mindspring.com>]

* ScruLoose (scruloose+debuser@eastlink.ca) [030510 13:12]:
> On Sat, May 10, 2003 at 11:02:36AM -0400, Hall Stevenson wrote:
> > * Paul Johnson (baloo@ursine.dyndns.org) [030510 01:56]:
> > > On Sat, May 10, 2003 at 12:59:45AM -0400, Hall Stevenson wrote:
> > > > That's *not* a problem, is it ??
> > > 
> > > Nope.  But if you're using dhclient, you might find it better to work
> > > it into /etc/dhclient-script, in which it'll only run when the DHCP
> > > lease is renewed, which will save you and dyndns some processor time
> > > and bandwidth.
> > > 
> > I do need a client that supports "broadband" routers, specifically my
> > Linksys BEFSR41. I see that 'ddclient' does.
> > 
> > On the unix page, there's only two listed that do: ddclient and ipcheck.
> 
> I'm using ddclient personally (it supports my router, too), and it seems to
> work, but:
> 
> 1)  It does not appear to be a question of "wakes up when your IP
> changes" as Paul said:  In my reading of the help output, the daemon mode
> wakes up at a (user-specified) interval, and checks for a changed IP;
> passing the update to DynDNS iff there's been a change.  Mine's set to an
> interval of 5 min -- I don't remember whether that was a default...

I guess checking every 300 seconds, which is the default, is often
enough for most people. It certainly is for me.

I don't know how it could work the way Paul mentions, "wakes up when
your IP changes" either. But then again, I'm just an average user... :)

> 2)  ddclient seems to be a hog, and I suspect it of having a memory
> leak(?).  Top tells me that it's currently using 1.1% of my CPU and 13% of
> my memory.  (In contrast, xmms playing an MP3 stream is using 0.1% CPU and
> 3.9% mem.)  After ddclient's been running for a few days, that'll sometimes
> climb to 50% mem and the system gets unusably slow until I restart
> ddclient.
> 
> So now I'm thinking about Paul's suggestion of working it into
> /etc/dhclient-script instead of letting it run as a daemon...
> Sadly, most of what's in that script is over my head.  I don't suppose
> anyone has an example they feel like posting, so a n00b like me will know
> *where* to work a call to ddclient into that script...?

I'll watch for comments on this as well as watching ddclient's cpu and
memory usage. What about using cron.daily to kill ddclient and then
re-start it ?? 

Regards
Hall