Getting Started with Remember IP (formerly myIP): Tips and Best PracticesRemember IP (formerly myIP) is a lightweight service designed to help you store, recall, and manage IP addresses reliably across applications, devices, and teams. Whether you’re an individual developer keeping track of dynamic IPs, a sysadmin coordinating access controls, or a small team managing a handful of remote hosts, Remember IP simplifies common IP-related workflows while offering reliability and minimal overhead.
This guide covers everything you need to know to get started: core concepts, account setup, common workflows, integration examples, security and privacy considerations, troubleshooting, and recommended best practices.
What is Remember IP?
Remember IP is a hosted service for storing and retrieving IP addresses tied to identifiers (names, devices, or services). It acts like a simple key-value store specifically optimized for IPs, often used to track changing public IPs, firewall allow-lists, dynamic DNS alternatives, or cross-team sharing of trusted addresses. It typically exposes a small REST API and/or SDKs for common languages.
Key benefits:
- Fast retrieval of current IPs for automation and scripts.
- Lightweight API that’s easy to integrate.
- Simple audit history to see when addresses changed.
- Lower complexity than running your own dynamic DNS or custom database.
Typical use cases
- Dynamic home/office IP tracking for remote access.
- Updating firewall allow-lists for cloud services or CI runners.
- Letting teammates fetch current IPs of developer machines or staging servers.
- Integrating into automation pipelines that need the latest egress IP to grant temporary access.
Getting started
1. Create an account and verify
- Sign up on the Remember IP website or via the provided onboarding flow.
- Verify your email and enable any recommended account recovery methods.
- If there’s a free tier or trial, use it to evaluate the API and integration model.
2. Create a project or namespace
Most services use a project, team, or namespace concept to group related IP entries. Create one for each environment (e.g., production, staging, personal).
3. Add your first IP entry
An entry is typically a key (name) plus metadata and the IP value. Example fields:
- name: “home-router”
- ip: “198.51.100.12”
- description: “Home office egress IP”
- tags: [“home”, “office”]
- owner: “[email protected]”
Use the web UI or API to create the entry. Many clients also provide a CLI.
Common workflows & examples
Below are common patterns you’ll use with Remember IP.
Dynamically updating a device’s public IP
- Install a small client or script on the device that detects public IP changes (querying an IP-check service or interface).
- When the IP changes, call Remember IP’s update API to set the new value and optionally add a timestamp and reason.
- Configure automated notifications if IP changes exceed frequency thresholds.
Example (pseudo-CLI/API steps):
- detect current public IP: 198.51.100.12
- POST /api/v1/entries { “name”: “dev-laptop”, “ip”: “198.51.100.12” }
Using Remember IP to update firewall allow-lists
- Add CI server or developer IP entries to Remember IP.
- Create an automation in your firewall/cloud provider that pulls the current IP from Remember IP’s API and updates the allow-list (e.g., AWS Security Group, GCP Firewall).
- Run this as a scheduled job or trigger on entry change.
Sharing IPs with teammates or services
- Give readonly API tokens to systems that need to fetch IPs.
- Use tags or naming conventions to let other teams discover relevant entries (e.g., tag: “ci” or name: “staging-db-egress”).
Security and access control
- Use API keys scoped to the minimum permissions needed (read-only for fetching, write for updating but limited to specific entries or namespaces when possible).
- Rotate keys regularly and revoke immediately if compromised.
- Require HTTPS for all API calls.
- Use audit logs to monitor who changed which IP and when.
- For highly sensitive use, restrict update endpoints to known client certificates or IP allow-lists.
Security checklist:
- Use scoped API keys for automation.
- Enable audit logs and review changes periodically.
- Rotate credentials and enforce least privilege.
- Limit the UI/API access by team or role.
Privacy considerations
Remember IP stores IP addresses, which can be treated as personal data in some jurisdictions. Consider:
- Minimizing metadata that links IPs to individual identities.
- Using organizational emails or service accounts as owners when possible.
- Reviewing local regulations (GDPR, CCPA) if storing IPs tied to named users or profiling.
Reliability & monitoring
- Regularly back up critical IP lists or export snapshots (CSV/JSON).
- Monitor API availability and set up alerts on failures when integrations depend on the service.
- Consider adding a second fallback mechanism if allow-list changes are critical (e.g., a secondary static IP or VPN).
Troubleshooting common issues
- “IP not updating”: check client detection method, ensure API key has write permission, inspect rate limits.
- “Wrong IP returned”: verify which entry/namespace is being read; check timestamps and recent history.
- “Permission denied”: confirm token scopes and that token is attached to the correct project/namespace.
Best practices
- Use clear naming conventions: environment-purpose-owner (e.g., prod-api-gw-alice).
- Tag entries for discoverability: environment, team, service.
- Automate updates from devices that frequently change IPs; avoid manual edits for dynamic hosts.
- Keep a small set of stable, shared IPs for critical infrastructure; prefer VPNs or static egress addresses for production-critical access.
- Review and prune stale entries every 3–6 months.
- Keep scripts idempotent: always set current IP even if unchanged, but skip updates when unnecessary to avoid noise in audit logs.
Example integration snippets
Use these as patterns (pseudo-code). Adapt to your language and Remember IP client.
-
Detect current IP and update:
# pseudo current_ip = fetch_public_ip() remember_ip.update("alice-home", ip=current_ip, description="auto-updated by client") -
Fetch an IP to use in a firewall update:
# pseudo ci_ip = remember_ip.get("ci-runner") cloud.firewall.update_allowlist(rule="ci-access", ip=ci_ip)
When to use alternatives
Remember IP is best for small-to-medium scale use cases where a lightweight IP store and easy retrieval are valuable. Consider alternatives when:
- You need full DNS management and hostname binding — use dynamic DNS.
- You require enterprise-grade identity and access controls or private networking — use VPNs, SD-WAN, or cloud-native egress controls.
- You need global, highly-available authoritative DNS for production routing.
Quick checklist to finish setup
- [ ] Create account, project/namespace
- [ ] Add initial entries and tags
- [ ] Generate scoped API keys for automation
- [ ] Install updater client on dynamic hosts
- [ ] Add monitoring/alerts for API availability and critical changes
- [ ] Schedule periodic review and pruning
Remember IP is a simple but powerful utility in the toolbox for managing IP-based access and automation. With scoped keys, automation, and clear naming/tagging, it reduces friction and human error in workflows that depend on current IP addresses.
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