why does my ip address change?

[pengyou]

I live in Shanghai, behind the bamboo curtain, and notice that sometimes my ip address changes while I am surfing the web. It is not after changing anything, after installing any new software, etc it just seems to change "by itself". When I set my pc up to surf the web I have to choose the DNS but the ip address is set to automatic in xp's settings. It sometimes doesn't happen for a couple of days and sometimes happens every few hours.

What is going on? It is annoying because I have to restart Skype when this happens, and usually msn messenger will shut itself off.

[nitrocrzy]

I have the same problem Pengyou. I suspect your having the same issue we have which is the #%$#% proxies. Our ISP resets the IP often. I suspect this is so they can monitor connections better. There is really nothing you can do about the IP being reset other than to check with the ISP to see if you can be exempted from the change and get a static IP.

[felgall]

A lot of ISPs around the world work their IP addresses that way. Many of them charge extra if you want a static IP address. The only reason you'd need a static IP address is if you are going to host something from your own computer (presumably for your own use since your connection would probably be far too slow to use for web hosting or anything else available to the public).

[nitrocrzy]

Hosting and stuff can by handled by DynDNS...... The issue Pengyou is having is very common in countries behind the (Wall of shame) country proxies. It's alot different than typical dynamically assigned IP addresses that most ISP's do... which by the way, really don't change very often for broadband.

[pengyou]

Would having my own ip address - or dns - help me get around the bamboo curtain here? I know that part of what my vpn does is to give me a series of dns to choose from.

[farcaster]

Getting an IP address is different from getting DNS.

If you are on a VPN, then that is the reason that your IP address for your computer changes when you make a connection. When we set up a VPN server (I had that job before retirement) we assign a pool of addresses to be assigned to a connection, and then simply assign the next one available. It would be difficult to get a static assignment from a VPN server. But unless the VPN server, or your computer, is misbehaving badly, that assign will not change in the duration of the connection. But, break the VPN connection and create a new one, you will more than likely get a new assignment.

The DNS part is one or more servers that take the web site name that you have requested (the forums, for example) and looks that up in a master database and get the IP address of the server and basically find out how to get you there. So if you type in www.bluehostforums.com then the IP address 67.20.126.71 gets returned and you are taken there. Some DNS servers operate better than others. They are totally independant of the assignment of the IP address to your computer.

Hope this helps the understanding of the difference, and why your IP address changes.