How to access web-based utils in DHCP network?

Factual Questions
1

How do I access config utilities by their IP addresses in a DHCP system?

I have a hardwired home ethernet Windows peer-to-peer network
that used fixed IP addresses, and everything worked fine,
including a Linksys EFG80 file server and two WAP11 wireless
access points (they’re actually doing translation, not
wireless). These three items are managed through web-based
config utilities which I accessed by typing their IP addresses
into Internet Explorer.

Then I got broadband - Direcway satellite - and their DW6000
“modem” requires the rest of your network to use DHCP, with it
as the host. Damn thing took me about 12 hours to figure out.
So I changed all my network components to be DHCP clients, and
now it all appears to work, except…

Now the config utilities don’t work. I type their old IP
addresses into IE and it says page not available. And,
indeed, these addresses shouldn’t be valid anymore. But how
do I find the correct addresses, which are periodically
changing without notice?

The devices themselves work, and I can rerun the installation
program to configure them, but it’s awfully klunky to do this
whenever I want to check their status.

2

I’m not familiar with this Direcway system, but why couldn’t you hook up the output from your “modem” into a router, then continue to use fixed IP addresses just like before? As far as the modem is concerned, you would only have one device hooked up, and you could run your other computers and devices through the router.

3

I’m not sure if your utility is on a local network or out in the void somewhere.

How to figure out the IP of a local machine when leased.

  1. Start a DOS session.
  2. Type ipconfig and press ENTER.
  3. Hopefully the screen displays your current, leased IP address.

If the utility is out in the void somewhere, I’d call the proper people and see if you can access the utility with a name instead of an IP.

4

Chances are, you can either use the Windows Name of the computer (ex. “Master Server” or “MyDesktop”) in this UNC naming convention:

\computername\share

The instructions to use “ipconfig /all” are a great idea as well, although that IP will change dynamically as your computers are rebooted and shut off. If all your machines remain powered at all times, you should still have the same IP addresses given by your DCHP server on your router/switch. Whenever you disconnect their power, they MAY receive a new IP from your router/switch upon power up.

5

If you cannot access these devices from your PC the reason could be one of the following:

  1. Their IP address has not changed, but the DHCP server has assigned an IP address in another subnet to your PC (an IP subnet is the IP address range that your PC knows it can talk to directly as opposed to over a router). As your PC thinks it cannot reach the addresses directly, and does not know the address of a router that it can use to reach the addresses, it throws up its hands.

You could try manually setting your PC’s IP address to the address (and subnet mask) that you used previously. That means you cannot connect to the Internet, but you will be able to reach the devices in your local network if they have not changed IP addresses

What are

  • the local network IP address that you want to reach
  • your PC’s IP address and subnet mask, as displayed by ipconfig?
  1. The IP addresses of the devices have changed (have been assigned by DHCP) but you do not know what they are

In this case you should try to configure the DHCP server to assign fixed IP addresses to the devices, identified by their physical (MAC) addresses (a string of 6 bytes the hexadecimal representation of which, e.g. 08-00-A0-5B-DE-69, should be on a label somewhere on the devices). The addresses that you choose must be in the same subnet as your PC, which (simplified) means that if you take your PC’s IP address and throw away any of the 4 components of the subnet address of which the corresponding number in the netmask is zero, the result is the same as for the same operation performed on the other device’s IP address.

6

I think because the DW6000 is a modem and router.

But anyway, do you know the host name of these other devices on your network? If your trying to access the EFG80 (I don’t know if this is windows based or not), instead of typing the IP address, you can type in the hostname (ex. telnet EFG80_HOST), this would resolve the hostname to the correct IP, regardless of IP. Kinda shitty that you don’t have the option to disable DHCP. Do a search in google for ‘DW6000 DHCP’, I don’t think you’re alone in this.

7

That in itself should not be a problem, there are several routers between your computer and any server you choose to talk to on the internet, one more won’t make a difference (as long as the routers have different subnets on their backsides).

-lv

8

>Kinda shitty that you don’t have the option to disable DHCP. Do a search in google for ‘DW6000 DHCP’, I don’t think you’re alone in this.

Yeah, that’s really the whole deal, here. I have hunted around and found others are stuck with this problem too.

You’d have to be dumb as toast to use the Direcway service if there was any other broadband available to you - cable, DSL, ISDN, wireless link to a neighbor - ANYTHING. To think it costs $600 up front plus $50/month for this frustration!

Right now I’m using dialup that manages about 300 bits/sec, sometimes 1000 - only recently was I able to keep a connection open for minutes at a time - and my Direcway modem sits idle while I ponder the next move.

By the way, the DW6000 is not configureable by the user. I can’t turn DHCP off or tell it to assign fixed addresses to anything. Their documentation and web sites basically say I shouldn’t worry and if I give them money everything will be OK.

All the devices I am working with say to access the control pages by typing their IP address in the address line of a browser. None of the manuals mention another method for getting there. In fact, it is quite alot of work to get to the control page for one of my wireless access points. I have to carry a PC out to the barn, unplug the DirecWay modem, reconfigure the PC to use a static IP and assign one to it, reboot it, run the wireless access point install disk to get to the WAP and assign it a static IP, and only then can I access its page. So I look at whatever I needed to look at, or change whatever I need to change, then do the whole process in reverse. Worse, if I plug the modem in at the wrong time, it somehow forces a re-install of the NIC driver as a DHCP client, which I have to track down and nuke.

Found a detailed post from someone trying to connect a Linksys BEFSX41 router to the DW6000. The conclusion: can’t be done.

I thought a router would allow two little networks, one with static IPs and one with DHCP, to talk. I don’t understand enough about this yet to know why that doesn’t work.
Well. Sorry for ranting.

If anybody else out there knows the answer, tell me - I’ll give you a kiss or a million brownie points, your choice.

9

This I know. My point was that because was a combined unit, another router isn’t neccesary. The unit should be able to hook up to a hub and IP’s can be obtained from DHCP. However this thing is obviously a POS and won’t let you disable DHCP.

10

The reason an intermediate router might not work is that the MAC address is configured incorrectly. Maybe. For our cable internet service, when you get hooked up you have to register a MAC address with them, and that’s what is allowed to talk to their servers to get to the internet. Most routers will let you configure the MAC address to spoof one of your own network cards.

11

I searched around, and couldn’t find anything in the way of official docs on the system. A few thoughts:

  • You say it “requires” the use of DHCP. What happens if you have equipment set up with static addresses on it’s pre-set subnet (which seems to be 192.168.0.0)? Does it actually take steps to block access to those computers? I.e., can you just set all of your network up statically and not use the DHCP service?
  • Doesn’t it have a management screen that tells you who it’s allocated each address to?
  • As others mentioned, you should be able to put a router between your network and the modem/router.

Sounds like a pretty brain-dead solution.