|
Posted by Jeff Liebermann on July 28, 2007, 1:40 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
>Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>>
>>> So there's no down-side to the "DHCP-assigned-fixed-IP" approach?
>>
>> There's always a down side to any good idea. The big one is most
>> cheap routers only have room for a few devices in the "static DHCP"
>> table. My guess is the RP-614 can only handle about 10 devices. That
>> may seem like enough but I've run out of table space with systems full
>> of IP cameras, print servers, and IP managed devices. By the time I'm
>> done assigning "static DHCP" or "static Lease" entries for these,
>> there's no room for the PC's.
>The second big downside is if "you're it" and this cheap router dies,
>what happens to the office. The more things you put in it the more fragile
>your office is. These cheaper routers are disposable so plan for it.
>When I put things like this into a small business I made them
>buy 2 of the EXACT same model and loaded the running config into the
>2nd one. Then if the router died I could talk them through swapping
>it out from the beach. As that would invariably be where I would be
>at when it did die.
Good point. My small customers are so cheap and failures are so few,
that I don't think I could justify the expense. What I do is set the
lease time expiration time to something like a week. I can run for
that long until I drag in a replacement.
<http://www.samspublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=30874&seqNum=3&rl=1>
Key hardware, such as print servers, modem servers, and routers all
get static IP's that are not dependent on the static DHCP in the
router.
I also save a backup of the router configuration but rarely use it.
The printed copy is more useful. That's because if the router needs
replacement, it's probably old and ancient. I don't want to be
replacing an 802.11b only wireless router with another one that won't
do 802.11g or better. So, I use the oportunity to do an upgrade,
which makes the backups somewhat useless.
>And if the OP is smart they'll test the swap so you know if they need
>to do things like power down the cable modem for 5 minutes to make
>it accept the Mac change or maybe you clone the MAC in the 2nd router
>to make it match the first. And so on.
>
>David Ross
That depends on the size of the company. My medium size companies
tend to have Cisco routers with failover setup on primary and backup
DHCP servers.
<http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/net_mgmt/network_registrar/6.1.1/user/guide/16Failov.html>
Same with Sonicwall (SonicOS) routers that support DHCP failover
(TZ170 mostly).
For small companies, that's overkill. I usually end up walking the
affected people through setting a temporary static IP on their desktop
so they can continue working. I carry spare routers in my office and
in my truck and can usually do a same day replacement. The hard part
is finding the paperwork and passwords, which unfortunately my
customers deem to be my job, not theirs.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML site map