Static DHCP with Linksys WRT54G

[sykopath79]

I have a Linksys WRT54G, which in my experience has been the best household router hands down. However, one thing I would like to accomplish, I have not been able to figure out, and I am not sure the official Linksys firmware even supports it: static DHCP.

I have my home network set up with static IP addresses to facilitate Remote Desktop/VNC and a variety of other internet applications. Every now and then, I'll take one of my machines elsewhere (e.g. a LAN party) where I switch to pulling DHCP to get online quickly. Problem is, when I get the machine back home, I'll hook it all up and then not remember to set it back to its static IP address until I find myself unable to remote in or something. Life would be much easier if I could just have my router assign a given MAC address the same IP address every time (hence the paradoxically named Static DHCP).

I have searched all throughout the latest firmware for my router and can see no options pertaining to Static DHCP. I know that the newer WRT54GC's firmware supports this feature, but it's ridiculous to buy a new router just for that one feature.

Does anyone know of a way to do this with the WRT54G? If I need a custom (third party) firmware to do this, what is a good, robust, stable firmware to use?

 

[jwilsie]

I don't know about your specific router, but in my Netgear it isn't called "Static DHCP" its called static routes. Maybe you just missed it.

Just my $.02

 

[sykopath79]

Static Routing on the Linksys firmware is a different function entirely. It's used for defining static paths between LANs.

Sounds like a confusing misnomer if Netgear calls Static DHCP "static routing".

 

[Joemonkey]

Pretty sure you need a custom firmware for that

Try Alchemy or Sveasoft

EDIT: and static DHCP makes no sense, the D is for dynamic which is the opposite of static...

Static IPs and Static Routing are the correct terms

 

[stash]

The term you want is DHCP reservations, and I don't believe the Linksys does this. Why do you need a static IP internally?

 

[SleepWalkerX]

i use this feature with my wrt54g + DD-WRT firmware. Alchemy can do this as well.

 

[sykopath79]

STaSh:

Static IP internally facilitates port forwarding. For example, if I'm running an FTP server from behind my router, and someone tries to FTP in from the outside, the router by default has no idea which machine on the LAN to send the FTP traffic to. Therefore, I configure the router via port forwarding to say okay, all traffic coming in on port 21 (default for FTP) goes to the local address 192.168.1.100.

Now, let's say that I have PC#1, PC#2, and a Laptop, all using DHCP. PC#1 is hosting FTP has been given the IP address 192.168.1.100, PC#2 got ...101. Now let's say PC#1 is turned off one day, and I turn on my laptop. Well, if the DHCP lease for PC#1 has expired, the router will assign the address 192.168.1.100 to the laptop because it is the first available dynamic IP address. Now, if I turn PC#1 on again, it's going to get assigned to 192.168.1.102, because .100 is taken. FTP will no longer work, because port 21 is forwarded to .100 and the machine now on .100 is not running an FTP server.

This is why I have been using static IP addresses on my home network, because I do not run all three machines 24x7 and there is a high likelihood of them changing dynamic IP addresses periodically. Problem is I have to remember to re-configure my static IP settings each time I have had one of my machines hooked up elsewhere using DHCP.

 

[stash]

Point taken. I give static IPs to my servers, which run 24x7, for that reason. SMTP, web, RDP, etc is forwarded to those, and the clients on my network use DHCP.