Allocating IP addresses through Sky router

ferry

Hi all
Need some advice please after having a number of issues with IP conflict issues in my household.
There are a number of wifi devices constantly in operation and i'm sure I have read somewhere that if I dedicate a fixed IP address to each device this will resolve the issue.
Can anyone offer any help and advice on this please and maybe even an idiot proof of doing it with a Sky hub?

Thanks as usual
F x

downhillfast

I can't tell you exactly how to do it as I'm not at home so can't connect to my router to see exactly what the menu says...

you need to login to the router and find the LAN section which I think actually falls under the maintenance menu(?) in there somewhere there is an option to 'reserve IP address' that is based on based on MAC address - this can be found by looking at what devices are connected to the router (again in a menu somewhere) and working it out based on the descriptive name. Sorry I can't be much more help but it may get you started!

Johnmcl7

What exactly is the problem you're having? If the Sky hub is the only device giving out the IP addresses on your network (DHCP server) and you haven't been using static IP addresses already then it's unlikely you're having IP address conflicts. These tend to occur when there are DHCP servers on the same network that are not configured to work together (such as when someone uses a router to extend their network and doesn't disable DHCP) or when static IP addresses have been configured which either conflict with each other or conflict with the DHCP range.

There are reasons to use static IP addresses but it doesn't sound like it's what you're needing in your case.

John

ferry

Cheers John
To be honest I'm not really technically minded but assume there is a conflict somewhere- I get an error message "Ip address conflict" or to that effect on my PC screen so just assumed if I could assign each unit its own static address when I know theres no conflict it would solve it?
My PC is wired to the router but everything else is wireless.

I'm running XP SP3 on my PC if that makes any difference.

Johnmcl7

ferry wrote: »

Cheers John
To be honest I'm not really technically minded but assume there is a conflict somewhere- I get an error message "Ip address conflict" or to that effect on my PC screen so just assumed if I could assign each unit its own static address when I know theres no conflict it would solve it?
My PC is wired to the router but everything else is wireless.

I'm running XP SP3 on my PC if that makes any difference.

Assigning everything a manual address is a a hassle and you shouldn't need to do it in your case, it sounds like one of the devices already has a static IP address and that's causing a problem because the router is also giving out that address.

On the PC that's showing the IP conflict error, hold the Windows button and press R to bring up the run box then type cmd and press enter which should bring up a black box. At the prompt type ipconfig /all which should then bring up something that looks a bit like this:

C:\>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Phalanx
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mixed
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 11:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-08-CA-72-D4-53
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter WiFi:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : 802.11bgn 1T1R Wireless Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-08-CA-72-D4-51
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::3d71:c17d:cadf:2a7e%13(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.37(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 27 June 2015 11:20:02
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 30 June 2015 11:20:02
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 318769354
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-18-55-81-62-F0-4D-A2-DE-57-06

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

I've put the important parts in bold, if DHCP is enabled then the problem is likely with the other device that has the IP address but if it's disabled then it's your PC that's likely causing the problem and you need to either change its address or change to DHCP.

John

Shrimply

I think this tends to occur when computers, etc are hibernated. They retain the IP address when they resume but in the meantime the router has assigned the IP address to another machine.

securityguy

Shrimply wrote: »

I think this tends to occur when computers, etc are hibernated. They retain the IP address when they resume but in the meantime the router has assigned the IP address to another machine.

Actually, the problem is (yet another) of the problems caused by people turning their routers off at night.

Device A acquires 192.168.0.2 with a lease of (say) 24 hours.

Owner powers off router.
Owner powers back on router.

Device B starts up. Less than 12 hours have passed since Device A got its IP number.
Device B now acquires 192.168.0.2 with a fresh lease of 24 hours.

Whoops.

Proper grown up DHCP servers survive this, because they record the leases to stable storage (and you don't power cycle them anyway). Cheap routers don't, and just record the leases in RAM. If you turn a router off for less than half of the lease period, this problem will arise. Moral: don't turn routers off.

Shrimply

A well I don't know too much about these things, when I was having the issue though it did seem to result in hibernating the laptop.

Am I right though that if the computer was fully shut down it would be reallocated an IP when it started anyway? So it wouldn't be a problem.

My parents have all sort of problems and I think it maybe boils down to their insistence that the wireless printer gets switched off. Which obviously has and needs a set ip address.

fermi

Address reservation by MAC address.

Always do that on mine so I know the IP to SSH or similar to a particular box.

Found screenshot online, so not sure if exactly the same.