Dynamic IP WAN >> Outbound DNS or Ping??

pf123user

I've never used anything but static IPs so this is a first for me.

Is there a way within PfSense to ping an outbound server or DNS site so that I can always know the public IP address that the PfSense firewall is behind?

I'd imagine that many home users would be looking for something like this. I have a few URLs so if need be I could put on this but I'd rather not. I'm really just looking for something within PfSense that sends an outbound ping to an external (Free) DNS or similar.

Is that what we have under the Services Menu?

The current PfSense machine is still running 123 at that location but it will soon be on 2.0.2 RELEASE. I have plenty of virtual environments to play around with this - just looking for someone to please point me in the right direction.

Thanks

marvosa

I guess you'd have to clarify what your goal is… because you do always know what your public IP is... it's right on the dashboard.

Are you asking if PFsense supports dynamic dns services like dyndns? Yes, enter your account in Services -> Dynamic DNS and it will keep your hostname updated.

wallabybob

@marvosa:

you do always know what your public IP is… it's right on the dashboard.

Probably not if your pfSense box is downstream of a router/modem interfacing to the public internet.

@pf2.0nyc:

Is there a way within PfSense to ping an outbound server or DNS site so that I can always know the public IP address that the PfSense firewall is behind?

Its not quite what you asked, but there are web sites like http://checkip.dyndns.org and http://myip.dnsomatic.com/ that return the public IP address of the upstream router.

There is code to get the public IP address using http://checkip.dyndns.org in function dyndnsCheckIP() in /usr/local/www/services_dyndns.php on your pfSense box.

jonallport

I think I know what you mean…

By way of experimentation I put this on a webserver:


 <rss version="2.0"><channel><title>IP</title>
        http://www.pfsense.org
        <description>Your info as seen by this server</description>
        <ttl>1</ttl>
        <title>IP address</title></channel></rss>

and then subscribed the RSS reader on the dashboard to http://my.web.server/ip_rss.php

Obviously it's dependent on the 'public' webserver component. Is that what you wanted?