The Weasel

How to make your personal computer accessible over the Internet (despite dynamic IP addressing)

Problem: Most dialup Internet service providers use what is called dynamic IP addressing; what this means is that your Internet address is different each time you connect to your ISP. For normal use this is not a problem, however if you want to be able to run server programs that others can access, you need a way of advertising your computer's current Internet address.

Solution: Weasel is a utility which automatically generates an HTML file containing up to date links to your computer. It then posts this file to your permanent Web site for others to access.

How it is used

You supply the program with a template HTML file into which special commands are placed as required. The program processes the template file and produces a temporary file where the special commands have been substituted with the command's replacement text. See the table in the User's Guide
This temporary file is then uploaded to the location of your choice using FTP. Typically the HTML file will contain links to an FTP or HTTP (WWW) server running on your computer but you are not limited to this, you could, for example, also have a link to a TELNET server.

In actual fact the template file does not have to be an HTML file it can be any ASCII text file, which may lead to other uses for the program. eg If you have a UNIX shell account Weasel could be used to generate a .plan file so that a finger request to that account returns the current Internet addressing information of your personal computer.

Ideally it is best to have Weasel run automatically just after a connection to your ISP has been made, however you can always run it manually if you can't figure out how to get it to run automatically. I use OS/2 and I use the PPPDIAL REXX script which provides the auto run facility. The Injoy OS/2 replacement dialer directly supports the launching of programs upon connection. For other platforms you will have to figure out if it can be run automatically for yourself.

View the Users guide.

What you will need:

  • The Weasel - Download now (assuming you haven't already done so). Archive includes the source, compiled classes, HTML documentation and example HTML template file:
  • weasl101.zip. This is an InfoZIP/PKZIP format ZIP file.
    Note: It contains long filenames (i.e. not restricted to DOS 8.3 format) so make sure your unzip utility can handle these otherwise, you may have to manually rename the files after extraction.
  • or download the individual files.
  • Java application support. Weasel is a Java application (not an applet). You must be able to run Java applications eg using the java program from a command prompt or command shell. Having a Java enabled web browser is not necessarily enough!
  • A template HTML file which Weasel uses and can contain whatever you want. A sample is supplied in the distribution which has links to local FTP and HTTP (WWW) servers and displays the last time connected.
  • A permanent web space allocation with FTP upload access. A lot of ISP's are now providing limited free web space with a standard dialup account.
    If not there are still a number of people providing free web space, try http://members.tripod.com/~jpsp1/sites.html.
  • Some server software. I will leave this as an exercise for you.
  • Preferably a way of having this utility automatically run just after a successful connection to your ISP has been made, otherwise you will have to run it manually each time you connect.

    • FAQ - Frequently asked questions

    Mail the author (Stephen Summerfield)