Updating and sending IP address automatically

I have SSH running on a machine with ADSL connection. I made this script to send me an email each time the machine has new a IP address. The machine is not accessible by me. I gave the script to a friend so I cannot perform debugging to figure out what is wrong with this script. I'm using a university connection right now and it has a static ip address. There is no point running the script on it. So any suggestions how to improve/fix the script. Sometimes I'll receive non valid IP addresses or sometimes the IP address will change but I don't get an email. Should I use another method for this kind of automation? ``` import urllib import time import smtplib fromaddr = '***@gmail.com' toaddrs = '***@gmail.com' ip = "" username = '****' password = '****' f = False def update(): global ip,f #print "sleeping 5 seconds" time.sleep(5) while not f: try: f = urllib.urlopen("http://automation.whatismyip.com/n09230945.asp") except IOError, e: print "no internet !" time.sleep(5) if not ip and f: ip = f.read() print "getting the first ip" print ip sendmail(ip) print "mail sent" else: if f: ip2 = f.read() #print ip,ip2 if ip != ip2 and ip and ip2: ip = ip2 print "new ip",ip,"sending mail" sendmail(ip) else: print "ip is the same" f = False #print ip def sendmail(ip): a = False while not a: try: #just to check if i have internet or not a = urllib.urlopen("http://automation.whatismyip.com/n09230945.asp") server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com:587') server.ehlo() server.starttls() server.ehlo() server.login(username,password) server.sendmail(fromaddr, toaddrs, ip) server.quit() except IOError, e: print "no internet" time.sleep(5) #sendmail(ip) print "program started" while(1): update() ```