Moving client & DHCP

[Corne Beerse]

David Reichard wrote:

>My laptop is the VNC server. When the laptop is on my home network, I'd like to be able to access it with a VNC client.
>
>My laptop gets its IP address from my home network's DHCP server. I can find out what the address is and use that to connect OK. But that address can change. I wish it were a fixed address or name. 
>  
>
What you need is a dns-server that cooperates with the dhcp-server. Then 
you can use the name of the machine. That's what those services are for.

The better dhcp servers can set a reservation based on the mac-addres 
(or even on the machine name). Check your dhcp-server for such options.

>I could set the TCP/IP properties on the laptop to a fixed IP but then it wouldn't be able to easily connect to other networks away from home. The laptop has Windows XP Home. Maybe there's a way to set TCP/IP properties per connection.
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With the newer msWindows, in the network properties, tcp/ip settings, 
you can define alternate settings. Those are used if no dhcp address can 
be found. Set your preferred home-ip-config in there. If you disable 
dhcp at home and either use this setting or otherwise fixed settings, 
you know the ip-address of your laptop when at home.

Most linux distributions can use location based network settings. For 
home useage, use a fixed ip-address, for office usage, use dhcp. Check 
the networking documentation on this.

>I could use the laptop's network name, but that apparently only works if both the client and server are on the same network. I actually have a number of networks at home, so that wouldn't always work.
>  
>
Not true, it just needs the dhcp-server to feed the dns-server.

If you have multiple networks, the dhcp-server is most likely not the 
one found in simple internet-routers as obtained from isps. Setup a 
dns-server too and you're off.

>It would be nice if I could tell the DHCP server to recognize the laptop (by MAC address?) and always assign the same IP. But I don't see how to do that on my BritePort 8124 ASDL DSL modem/router.
>  
>
This ip-reservation by mac address is common practice in most 
dhcp-deamons. If you're looking for a dedicated router machine, peek at 
stuff like http://www.clarkconnect.com/ they are relative easy to 
install and setup. Even my boss has one at home ;-)

>Any suggestions?
>
>
>
>
>- David Reichard
>radiodave "at" igc.org
>415-366-7373
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