LAN IP number assignments question

[WildHorse]

I had set up a nice home network using Network Magic software, but now I?m trying to make it work without that software as a crutch.

At How to Set Up a Small Network with Windows XP Home Edition (PART 5),

under "TCP/IP" "IP Address and Subnet Mask"

it says: ?All computers are numbered in a series.?

So when I go around to the different computers on my home wireless network, I should enter LAN IP addresses for each one in number series, right?

The router already used up the first number in the IP number sequence, 192.168.0.1

Somehow, the first (wired) computer did not get the next LAN IP address number in the series, which should have been 192.168.0.2.

Instead, it got some other number much higher in the sequence, example: 192.168.0.183 (the true number is different). All the numbers in between are skipped.

QUESTION #1: For the 1st (wired) computer, should I manually change the LAN IP from what it has now, 192.168.0.183, to instead be the next number in the series, which would be 192.168.0.2 ?

QUESTION #2: If I leave the first (wired) computer with LAN IP 192.168.0.183, then when I go around to type in the LAN IP addresses for each of the wireless computers on the home network, should I go up in number series starting from that number? Or can I go back and use the LAN IP numbers that got skipped, from 192.168.0.2 , .4, .5 etc.?

QUESTION #3: Does it matter if LAN IP numbers in the number series are skipped? Does it matter?

 

[JackMDS]

It does not matter so much what the IP number is as long as they are within the correct range.

The numbers are IDs and not numerical Values.

However, each Router's DHCP server can be set to provide certain range of IPs.

So if you have 5 computers (as an example) and you set the DHCP Range to 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.5 the IPs assigned would be from 1 to 5.

In addition some Routers has the capacity to combine the IP number with the MAC address of the computer (aka Static DHCP). If your Router can do so you can assign the same IP to be always with a specific computer.

 

[WildHorse]

JackMDS,

Thank you for your helpful comments.

Also thank you for all the good info I've been learning from www.ezlan.net.

I learned more from ezlan.net than I did from the "How to network" book I read.

 

[Tsaico]

Answer 1: just let the router's DHCP handle the assigning of the IPs. Like MDS said, it is an identifier. So as long as they are not duplicated you will be fine, regardless of what sequence it is from. If you manually enter information (which you can totally do) it increases your chances of not remembering which one is taken and which is free. While not very important in a home network, since you will have only a few, when you get to larger ones, you can have thousands and it will get confusing quick.

Answer 2: It doesn't matter, as long as they are unique and part of the same subnet.

Answer 3: not at all.


Technically each range is called a subnet. So you might hear that dropped every once in a while. And the static dhcp is also referred to as a reservation. The subnet mask is the section that tells the computers what part of the subnet it is a part of.

To get a better understanding of how it works, you will need to know some terms too. The IP address has two sections, a network and a host. The network is your "subnet" or "series" in your case. The host is any computer or device that requires an IP. The subnet masks tells the device and subnet who is part of the same network. For now knowing that is a good start. Eventually you will want to get a bnasic understanding on subnet masks and how to calculate them. (though there are programs and calculators that will do this for you, it is kinda like multiplying, you can use tools to make it faster, but knowing how to get the answer yourself is a good thing) Just do a search on the topic in google and you will find far more resources and how-to's than I could ever think of writing here.

 

[WildHorse]

Tsaico,

Thank you.

Think I've pretty much got it now. Like you & JackMDS said, I set a limit on the range of IP numbers the DHCP can assign, and I set a "reservation" in the router control so it'll always give a specific IP number to a specific computer.

That gives me a small quantity of LAN IPs that can be specified in Kaspersky Anti-Virus Trusted Zone to prevent interference from that.

It sure is great to be able to see the files on one computer from another!
As a test, on the laptop I played part of a movie stored on a desktop. Works fine!
And all the computers can see the printer too. Sure is nice.

Last big hurdle is to figure out how to bring on the final oldest desktop that still runs Windows 2000 Pro.

It had worked, then I installed Jetico firewall on it for about 5 minutes, which killed it's networking. After uninstalling Jetico and cleaning its remnants out of the registry, I've never been able to network that computer again.

Solving that one without complete OS reinstall is a project.

Thanks again, Tsaico.