weird wget/curl problems

Fri Aug 11 19:22:11 PDT 2006

On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 08:36:17PM -0500, Net Llama! wrote:
> I use freedns.afraid.org for providing a static domain name for the 
> dynamic IP of my home DSL connection.  I've had this bizarre problem for a 
> few weeks now, where hitting the URL which updates the IP assigned to my 
> domain name fails with both wget & curl when run from a cronjob.  Yet, if 
> I run it again manually, it works.
> 
> When it fails, their server returns this:
> <HTML><HEAD><META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0.1;
> URL=/dynamic/update.php?UXdrdUswWlVoierg03jhgw0E=">
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no cache">
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="-1">
> </HEAD></HTML>
> 
> However, when it works, I see:
> Updated 1 host(s) netllama.eth0.ws to 71.131.59.15 in 0.520 seconds
> 
> I can't figure out why its doing this at all.  Anyone have any ideas why 
> wget & curl wouldn't work via a cronjob?

Bizaare. The "-1" value is invalid for the "Expires" attribute, and
lots of browsers ignore it. That might not be the issue here. Did
cron jobs work in the past? If so, what's changed? My only other
suggestions would be that something changed at freedns or you are
missing something in your environment when you run the job from
cron that is present when you run it manually.

Kurt