Polling via API or Runnable?

I am writing a plugin that will poll at intervals to check the server’s public IP address and then publish it to a service. At the moment I am simply looking to create a new thread and in a run() statement just loop, with a sleep, until the plugin is disabled. Is this the way to go or is there an alternative way I should be approaching this, using the API?

Also, is there a data cache that can be used, so I can store the last IP address discovered, between restarts? I only want to publish the IP if it has changed.

 

This won't be the only feature of the plugin, so it just made sense to bundle the functionality. Doing this way has a few benefits:

- Platform agnostic (Windows, Linux, macOS)
- Simplifies the support burden, since

- Not everyone is technical
- It is consistent across platforms.
- Don't need to deal with multiple approaches​

- Only notifies while the MC server is running

BTW the plugin is this one: https://github.com/ajmas/DiscordWebhookX

 

Ideally it should not, but that is not the reality we are dealing with.

The server is running on a friend’s home network, unattended, shared amongst friends remotely. Periodically the router resets, the ISP runs into issues and the assigned external IP changes. BTW the machine’s IP is not the issue here, just the external IP of the network.

Anyhow at this point I have just gone with a thread that starts when the plugin is enabled and terminated when the plugin is disabled. It is working for our needs.