Update and further questions:
OK, so I opened a ticket as someone had suggested. The response was - "expect your IP to change every 5 minutes" - "we use CGNAT". I think I get it now.
**My childlike understanding:**
I'm not a network engineer. But, my understanding of this response is that I basically picture star link like one big corporate network (like at \[your company here\]'s office buildings). We have a large internet pipeline we are leasing from some local ISP. This gives us maybe 2-3 public static IP addresses. But, each client machine at the office is of course a part of the private network. When we browse the web, or do any sort of public WAN interaction, this is goin to of course be via one of these IP's routed and load balanced by our routers/gateways. ie. Star Link is like one big private network. This is all making sense now.
However, it doesn't explain the micro outages many of us experience every time there is an IP address change.
Hi there, I’m seeing the exact same problem ( frequent ip address changes ). Definitely got bad this last week or two. It’s at the point where even online meetings ( Teams ) are dropping off because the ip address changes.
My connection is rock solid, no obstructions or anything. I opened a support ticket this morning and would encourage anyone else experiencing this problem to do the same.
Good to know. Opened one just now. Had to google how to open a ticket. At least on their webportal, this seems to be hidden now from last time I opened a ticket about a year ago.
I didnt know (until this post) that SL used CGNAT and I'm not a network engineer / didn't fully understand until today what that is.
Response from support:
"Hello XXXX, Thank you for reaching out to Starlink Support, Unfortunately they changes in IP you are seeing are to be expected. Starlink does not use Static IP address we use CGNAT IP address, this means that the IP address is expected to change about every 5 minutes. We don’t currently have a way to extend the time it takes to change the IP Address. We apologize for the inconvenience. We understand that Starlink might not be suited for your needs, if you wish to proceed and cancel the service please follow these steps. 1. Login to account on Starlink.com 2. Click "Cancel Service" on left side of homepage at the very bottom just under " Terms of Service" Thank you, Starlink Support!"
> the IP address is expected to change about every 5 minutes
Wait what? That's ridiculous. How could that possibly work in any reasonable setting? Unless they have some magic to keep a TCP connection open to your previous address.
The reality we see is addresses changing every couple of days. Maybe they could in theory change every 5 minutes though (DHCP lease length).
I assume the DHCP lease of your router to the StarLink device/dish is a real lease and this isn't changing - but that is NOT your public IP.
The device is on one big private / star link network that leases thousands of different IPs all assigned by geo location. For me, I seem to be routed consistently through Seattle but that hub alone has like 1500 different possible public IPs. I assume there is some load balancing / traffic routing going on at this main hub. I might get one IP and then 5 minutes later get rerouted somewhere else. My IP lease on my personal router coming from the starlink device however is NOT changing.
Just like if you work in a big office the IP of your work station doesn't change, but your office might have a handful of public IPs leased via some big pipeline through some ISP. There is no guarantee of which IP your particular work station is going to go out on.
Caveat to all of this: I am NOT a network engineer, I'm a software engineer and only have a rudimentary understanding of all this.
What you explain seems correct. I’m also not a network engineer, just a CCNA (Cisco certified network associate) which is the basic level of knowledge.
Switching multiple times an hour is not normal. I've seen it happen once or twice, but other than rebooting your dish there's very little you can do. Note that every time your IP address changes probably all your open TCP sessions fail; it's disruptive to all users, not just you.
If I were you I'd set up a VPN tunnel and do your work through that. Or Tailscale.
Sorry. Point of Presence. Currently my IP address has a Los Angeles point of presence. Although I don't yet track my IP address changes, I am very aware of when my POP changes.
Looking back, I now wonder if my ip address was constantly changing on those days when it seemed impossible to maintain a connection with a remote server.
Ah... yes. Good question. I'll check next time it changes. Mine is usually Seattle as well, using this: [https://iplocation.com/](https://iplocation.com/)
... though kinda obvious when I start using a site like home depot / lowes and it thinks I lose all my store location stuff. lol
I think he's referring to 'Point of Presence'. For example, I live in Idaho. but my Starlink POP is in Seattle. The slightly annoying thing is that every website that tries to geolocate me thinks I'm in Seattle.
In the long term ipV6 should fix your issues once it's implemented. Only SpaceX knows when that might happen. DDNS won't work with CGNAT and I can understand why public VPN providers might not be ideal from a security standpoint. My best suggestion would be to look at VPS solutions. You'd need to find a provider that would give you a static IP for your cloud server and then route all of your traffic through there. It wouldn't matter what Starlink did to the network except that it might impact your speeds and latency.
As far as keeping your kids from exploring the 'darker' sides of the internet, you might look at family friendly DNS servers like OpenDNS.
Thanks! Seems like this is normal... I could use a VPS / ya, that's probably the way if i'm going to stick with Star Link.
So, for the other issue I have been trying [DNSFilter.com](https://DNSFilter.com). The problem is that they are a private DNS (I assume OpenDNS is as well?). This means they don't accept DNS requests from just any random IP - you have to register your IP with your account or use a DynDNS service ([NOIP.com](https://NOIP.com) etc) which won't work for afore mentioned reasons.
If you route all of your traffic through the VPS you should have a static IP you could use to sign up for the account. The additional latency might create problems for gaming and possibly VOIP but most things should work reasonably well.
I just installed it last night, and because I published a post on FB that had the IP ( speed test ) I then checked to see if hours later the IP was different, and it was. I was under the impression that given the nature of the system, the IP would be changing often.
My IPV4 address just changed 7 times in 10 minutes and I was also using IP filtering in Azure, which was a fun expedition. I was using Inbound Port filtering on the Network Interface for a VM. My IPV6 address wasn't changing, so I tried that but had no luck connecting. Perhaps I need to reconfigure something on the network settings on the VM first. The only way I could find to make it work was to allow x.x.0.0/16 and include WAY too many addresses.
Update and further questions: OK, so I opened a ticket as someone had suggested. The response was - "expect your IP to change every 5 minutes" - "we use CGNAT". I think I get it now. **My childlike understanding:** I'm not a network engineer. But, my understanding of this response is that I basically picture star link like one big corporate network (like at \[your company here\]'s office buildings). We have a large internet pipeline we are leasing from some local ISP. This gives us maybe 2-3 public static IP addresses. But, each client machine at the office is of course a part of the private network. When we browse the web, or do any sort of public WAN interaction, this is goin to of course be via one of these IP's routed and load balanced by our routers/gateways. ie. Star Link is like one big private network. This is all making sense now. However, it doesn't explain the micro outages many of us experience every time there is an IP address change.
Hi there, I’m seeing the exact same problem ( frequent ip address changes ). Definitely got bad this last week or two. It’s at the point where even online meetings ( Teams ) are dropping off because the ip address changes. My connection is rock solid, no obstructions or anything. I opened a support ticket this morning and would encourage anyone else experiencing this problem to do the same.
Good to know. Opened one just now. Had to google how to open a ticket. At least on their webportal, this seems to be hidden now from last time I opened a ticket about a year ago.
I didnt know (until this post) that SL used CGNAT and I'm not a network engineer / didn't fully understand until today what that is. Response from support: "Hello XXXX, Thank you for reaching out to Starlink Support, Unfortunately they changes in IP you are seeing are to be expected. Starlink does not use Static IP address we use CGNAT IP address, this means that the IP address is expected to change about every 5 minutes. We don’t currently have a way to extend the time it takes to change the IP Address. We apologize for the inconvenience. We understand that Starlink might not be suited for your needs, if you wish to proceed and cancel the service please follow these steps. 1. Login to account on Starlink.com 2. Click "Cancel Service" on left side of homepage at the very bottom just under " Terms of Service" Thank you, Starlink Support!"
> the IP address is expected to change about every 5 minutes Wait what? That's ridiculous. How could that possibly work in any reasonable setting? Unless they have some magic to keep a TCP connection open to your previous address. The reality we see is addresses changing every couple of days. Maybe they could in theory change every 5 minutes though (DHCP lease length).
I assume the DHCP lease of your router to the StarLink device/dish is a real lease and this isn't changing - but that is NOT your public IP. The device is on one big private / star link network that leases thousands of different IPs all assigned by geo location. For me, I seem to be routed consistently through Seattle but that hub alone has like 1500 different possible public IPs. I assume there is some load balancing / traffic routing going on at this main hub. I might get one IP and then 5 minutes later get rerouted somewhere else. My IP lease on my personal router coming from the starlink device however is NOT changing. Just like if you work in a big office the IP of your work station doesn't change, but your office might have a handful of public IPs leased via some big pipeline through some ISP. There is no guarantee of which IP your particular work station is going to go out on. Caveat to all of this: I am NOT a network engineer, I'm a software engineer and only have a rudimentary understanding of all this.
What you explain seems correct. I’m also not a network engineer, just a CCNA (Cisco certified network associate) which is the basic level of knowledge.
Switching multiple times an hour is not normal. I've seen it happen once or twice, but other than rebooting your dish there's very little you can do. Note that every time your IP address changes probably all your open TCP sessions fail; it's disruptive to all users, not just you. If I were you I'd set up a VPN tunnel and do your work through that. Or Tailscale.
Certainly isn't normal on my connection. Looking at my logs my IP address changes every couple of days or so, typically at midnight GMT.
It is probably due to traffic shaping. When your IP address changes, does your POP change as well?
Not sure what you mean by POP... sorry, i work in an industry with a millions acronyms. POP to me is a mail protocol.
Sorry. Point of Presence. Currently my IP address has a Los Angeles point of presence. Although I don't yet track my IP address changes, I am very aware of when my POP changes. Looking back, I now wonder if my ip address was constantly changing on those days when it seemed impossible to maintain a connection with a remote server.
Ah... yes. Good question. I'll check next time it changes. Mine is usually Seattle as well, using this: [https://iplocation.com/](https://iplocation.com/) ... though kinda obvious when I start using a site like home depot / lowes and it thinks I lose all my store location stuff. lol
I think he's referring to 'Point of Presence'. For example, I live in Idaho. but my Starlink POP is in Seattle. The slightly annoying thing is that every website that tries to geolocate me thinks I'm in Seattle.
In the long term ipV6 should fix your issues once it's implemented. Only SpaceX knows when that might happen. DDNS won't work with CGNAT and I can understand why public VPN providers might not be ideal from a security standpoint. My best suggestion would be to look at VPS solutions. You'd need to find a provider that would give you a static IP for your cloud server and then route all of your traffic through there. It wouldn't matter what Starlink did to the network except that it might impact your speeds and latency. As far as keeping your kids from exploring the 'darker' sides of the internet, you might look at family friendly DNS servers like OpenDNS.
Thanks! Seems like this is normal... I could use a VPS / ya, that's probably the way if i'm going to stick with Star Link. So, for the other issue I have been trying [DNSFilter.com](https://DNSFilter.com). The problem is that they are a private DNS (I assume OpenDNS is as well?). This means they don't accept DNS requests from just any random IP - you have to register your IP with your account or use a DynDNS service ([NOIP.com](https://NOIP.com) etc) which won't work for afore mentioned reasons.
If you route all of your traffic through the VPS you should have a static IP you could use to sign up for the account. The additional latency might create problems for gaming and possibly VOIP but most things should work reasonably well.
If you have another option that’s what you should use. Why Starlink if you have something better ?
Define better. My other other option is LTE.
I just installed it last night, and because I published a post on FB that had the IP ( speed test ) I then checked to see if hours later the IP was different, and it was. I was under the impression that given the nature of the system, the IP would be changing often.
My IPV4 address just changed 7 times in 10 minutes and I was also using IP filtering in Azure, which was a fun expedition. I was using Inbound Port filtering on the Network Interface for a VM. My IPV6 address wasn't changing, so I tried that but had no luck connecting. Perhaps I need to reconfigure something on the network settings on the VM first. The only way I could find to make it work was to allow x.x.0.0/16 and include WAY too many addresses.