I can haz IP?

I have the strange habit to look up my external IP and to display it in the conky instance on my desktop (see here for an example). So far, I've got this IP directly from my Fritz!Box 7170, but the command I've used doesn't work with the new box (a 7590). I thus had to find a new way to get my IP.

There are plenty of websites returning the IP upon a simple connection by curl:

curl icanhazip.com
curl ifconfig.me
curl ipecho.net/plain
curl ifconfig.co
curl ipinfo.io/ip
curl -s checkip.dyndns.org | sed -r 's#(.*: )([0-9.]*)(<.*)#\2#'

There's also at least one DNS server offering this service:

dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com

But I would very much prefer a local solution as before. And it turns out that this solution exists: The package miniupnpc “enables applications to access the services provided by an UPnP ‘Internet Gateway Device’ present on the network. In UPnP terminology, MiniUPnPc is a UPnP Control Point.”

This package contains a command that retrieves the external IP from current Fritz!Boxes:

cobra at blackvelvet in ~
↪ external-ip
85.212.90.227

Bingo!