Networks PC network solution in new home

Let me clear that up a bit.

I use DHCP and have my "normal" Machines with Set IP outside the DHCP range, to avoid addressing conflicts and to be able to work as a web server. (requires set IP)

- When setting up a Network Printer you need to either give it a set IP (windows crap) so you can find it after IP lease runs out and it is give a new IP. Or need to be able to set up IP finding using MAC address.

The CISCO router can do all this for me, except with the server issue but thats just not possible in any other config regardless of Hardware/Software.

 

Oh, you mean that you're simply setting static IPs for permanent machines? That's obvious enough if that's the case, unless I'm missing the point.

 

Yup that's it. No worries, I often hear this: I plug it in why doesn't it work from iCustomers.

 

As a thought, and i think this may be easy to do, instead of trying to take the network to the phone socket, move the phone socket to the network.
If you re-locate / extend the BT phone line to the spare room and plug the router in there it will allow you to run a wired network.
The telephone cable is thin and easier to route than CAT5, so you should be able to get it under the carpet and hidden better.

just a thought.

 

To answer the original question: if there's any way you can test out a 5GHz WiFi connection, I'd try that before stringing cables everywhere or investing in powerline adaptors.

That's clearer than your initial post, certainly. You don't really need to know the MAC addresses for each device unless you're setting up MAC address-based white/black list. If you configure static/reserved IP addresses within the router config, the router will already know the MAC addresses of connected devices - you just need to match up the IP shown in the device OS with the IP address of the connected devices in the router config. If you're setting the static IP within the OS then you don't really need to worry about knowing the MAC address either - you just have to set the IP addresses.

I do agree that most home routers supplied by ISPs are utter piles of cack (Virgin Media SuperRubbishPOSHub, anyone? ), though I would question the benefit of all the work involved in setting each network device to use a static IP. Most home networks don't handle heavy loads or require a minimum level of resilience/stability. If the router is crapping its pants a quick reboot usually solves the problem (and the hardware is usually up to the job, the weak point is usually software/firmware - hence custom firmwares such as DD-WRT).

Off the top of my head, there are at least 8 separate devices that connect to my network: TV, Xbox, PC, laptop, Raspberry Pi, O2 Joggler and two mobile phones. Three of those devices (laptop, Raspberry Pi and my Joggler) regularly use different operating systems; setting the IP addresses manually for each OS/device would be a massive pain in the backside...

I do actually have IPs reservations (based on the MAC address) for my PC, the Pi and the Joggler: I run network services from my PC, and I'm regularly SSH'ing into the Joggler & the Pi. However I did that within the router config, rather than each separate OS; this does bind the IP address to the MAC address, but I didn't have to enter the MAC addresses to achieve this.

It's only really worth doing it when it's needed, IMO. I'm not advocating against tuning your network setup, but you'll probably reach a point of diminishing returns.

 

This is a great suggestion actually, I don't know why I didn't think of this, as this is what I have done in my setup xD

Okay, now it's clear what we're talking about, I thought that I was seriously missing something before; turns out that's not the case.

 

[ disclaimer - I am a sysadmin by trade ]

Why are DHCP reservations even needed on a home network? The only use-cases in a home network (in my mind) are:

1) If you're security-minded and want to set your DHCP range to be the exact number of machines you want, then give each MAC a dedicated IP reservation - so making it impossible for an unknown device to get an IP.

2) If you run anything port-forwarded or NAT'ed on your router.

You're not going to see any (literally) difference in performance by reserving an IP outside of the range because you're still using the DHCP protocol and the router still has the MAC in its routing table regardless.

In terms of setting static IPs on the OS, I'm not sure how this would give you any kind of performance boost either. Setting static OS IPs is pretty much redundant anyway when you consider DHCP reservations. If you need a certain piece of hardware on a specific non-changing IP, leave the OS config alone and configure a static reservation on the MAC.

To give a practical example, I run use-case (1) on my virtual hosted box (my private subnet is 172.16.100.0/24, I have my DHCP range set to a single IP (.150) to allow for a PXE-built box before I create the reservation and all my VMs have reservations (from .2 to .10).

I used to run use-case (2) at home, before I moved my VMs to a dedi box (my actual config was a bit more complicated involving my own 10.0.100.0/24 subnet and the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet provided by my home router, with a second router NAT'ing between the 192 and 10 'nets.

 

In my case, the file shares on my Windows 7 box are used by multiple Linux clients (laptop, Raspberry Pi, Joggler & phones). When mounting the shares from Linux I specify the IP address of the server manually - I haven't found a reliable way to specify a machine or host name when mounting a share in Linux, so by far the easiest solution is just to use the IP. If I were to use DHCP, my fstab entries would become invalid every time the lease expires and a new address is assigned.

I also have need to SSH into machines over the network fairly regularly; a seemingly unresponsive machine can sometimes be safely recovered via an SSH session, rather than the brute force approach of yanking the power cable. I do quite a lot of tinkering with the Joggler and Raspberry Pi, often involving experimental packages/OS'; knowing the IP address to SSH into ahead of time is far quicker than having to open the router config page each time to determine the address it's been assigned. Especially as these devices sometimes run headless (well, maybe not the Joggler, but that sometimes has pretty poor touchscreen response)

That's kinda what I was getting at - it's a lot of effort for very little (if any) benefit.

 

Sorry NO, or at least badly worded.

On the device you either just set to DHCP or you set manually to match what you set the IP to be in the DHCP server(only if you set static IP).
-Yes you do not need to know which MAC is for what, if you do not care what IP which device gets. Some people like to design, their network in groups of IP's like: Switches, Powerline and router (1-10)
the rest 10-100.

In other words the DHCP server (router) is where the IP is set.
The main reason for matching on the PC is if you are running web-server applications or you are very pedantic about stability/security.

 

erm, well i am glad that i have started an interesting discussion and i can say that i have understood a small fraction of it (save the rest for later).

On my original issue i have gone with buying a 20m telephone extension cord and tacking it into the skirting. Cheapest option and works a treat. Thanks for all your help.

As someone else pointed out its thinner than the Cat5 cable so it made sense as its easier to hide.

I am interested in how all the network stuff works so the discussion that is going on is quite useful..... carry on men!!

taa

 

I can kind-of understand you're reasoning, and apologies if this sounds condescending but you're (at least partly) wrong here. Some of what you've written is correct, but I'm not sure you understand the reasoning.

You can set DHCP reservations and statics separately, but doing this is totally unnecessary, as what you're doing is replacing what you use DHCP for (i.e. providing IP addresses). Doing this for security is an ineffective and moot argument, as setting static IPs doesn't provide any more (or less) security than DHCP (at least if you have a DHCP server active on your segment).

You can design networks entirely using DHCP and still segment the equipment into switch/printer/router groups by using MAC-based DHCP reservations. Personally, using DHCP is the best option 90% of the time, as you have a single point of control for your addressing, and also a redundant point of control if you do it properly (BIND on Linux supports master/slave failover, Windows needs enterprise-level clustering to do this properly).

Ultimately, statics are good, but they should be set on a different segment than your DHCP range

Good to know you got things sorted

 

We mean the same thing. My network vocab is not as good, sorry.
If you have any links fully explaining this, it would help the others to clear up any confussion we may have caused ;-)

Sent from Bittech Android app

 

I had trouble with range using a 5GHz signal. Its just didn't travel outside the room where the router was so I stick with 2.4GHz.

Also my uncle once put in a socket for my dad by taking a T off an existing socket up stairs. He drilled a hole downstairs and managed to fish the cable through the wall cavity. Depending on the layout of your house you may be able to do something like this. Which has the benefit of no exposed cables for the wife and the best speeds for you.