[WT-support] Networking question

[Laurent HAAS - F6FVY]

Hi John

John Warburton G4IRN a écrit :

> I set up a network of 7 or 8 Win-Test laptops on a wireless network via 
> a Wireless Access Point with 'DHCP Server' enabled.
> The router's IP start address for dynamic allocation is 192.168.0.100
> The WT laptops do NOT have static IP addresses, they have Dynamic 
> allocation of IP configured.
> Ethernet is enabled on each laptop with the same broadcast address and 
> port number. Each station number is different.
>  
> What will the consequence be of not setting fixed IP addresses on the 
> laptops? (yes, I know the manual states you should use a static address!)

No consequece, as fas as you correctly set the broadcast address, 
related to the subnet mask. Use the "DOS" ipconfig conmmand if needed.

> As far as I can work out, my router always allocates 192.168.0.* - will 
> the network run quite happily?

See above.

We recommand to use static addresses because it is *much* easier to 
debug when things go wrong. You exactly who's who on the network, and 
the tests (ping etc.) are much easier to manage. Especially in a large 
network and when computers are far away each others ;-)

> What if I need to reboot a laptop and it grabs a new unique  IP address, 
> within the 192.168.0.* range, on startup ?

Actually, it will not grab a "new address", because the lease time of an 
IP is far superior than the reboot time (well, I hope so !). The DHCP 
server keeps trace of all IPs it allocated, and relies on the MAC 
address of the NIC which asked for an IP. See 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhcp for more details.

> Am I inviting trouble if I do not set the IP addresses as FIXED?

It mostly depends on your networking expertise and strategy.

73

Larry - F6FVY