Router Static IP

[Bolkonsky]

If you want help with that, start another thread so we arent hijacking this one. I have no idea what router you are using, but I have no doubt we can solve your issue.

Gladly! I'm using an Actiontec MI424WR. Now on my old Linksys it was as easy going to port forwarding>reserve IP address>putting in my network item. Unfortunately, the Linksys has an 80% packet loss... Anyways, That gave whatever I was forwarding to a static internal IP. I also managed to do this on Windows XP once by giving it a network address of 192.168.255 so that it couldn't go any higher than that. However, with Verizon they have their own router (the Actiontec) that I want to forward to my Netgear router (which I know how to do already.) I either cannot find the option, or it doesn't exist. I should point out that they're giving me 30/15 internet, with a Wireless-G router, so I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't exist. They're also pretty proactive about making sure you can never host anything on a home connection.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Ok, first lets separate a few things out here.

Your router basically has 2 IP addresses, one for the WAN interface, and one for the LAN interface.

The WAN interface will be assigned by your ISP, and may change, but usually doesnt unless you reboot. Some ISPs (Qwest I know) forces out a change after 7 days. We will work around that later.

Your internal LAN interface will start with 192 (10 is possible but most home networks are 192.168). If I read your post above correctly you assigned an address of 192.168.255, which is impossible. You are missing an octet there. Did you mean 192.168.1.255?

If so, then this is half of your problem. You cannot use x.x.x.255, that is reserved as a broadcast address (NetBIOS and stuff like that uses that). You should only use 1 through 254. You are probably getting all kinds of traffic collision because of this.

The other half of your problem, again if I am reading you correctly, is that you have multiple routers on your network. You can do that, if things are set up properly, most likely they are not. Remove the second router from the network, for now its just getting in the way.

Set your routers internal interface to 192.168.1.1, reboot it.
Make sure your PCs are all set to receive DHCP, reboot them.

Once they come up, run the ipconfig command via DOS window, and write down all the IPs.

Ping everything from everything else. Make sure all your machines respond. If one doesnt then check settings and make sure you dont have a weird subnet mask out there. For this they should all be 255.255.255.0.


Once everything is up and running, go through the port forwarding stuff on your router, the manual is here. Pick something that doesnt use a common port, like a game. Your ISP probably does block stuff like port 80 and port 25 so people are not hosting websites and mail servers.

If everything works ok, then leave it as is and see if your ISP changes your IP address. If they do, I will tell you about DynamicDNS and how to get around it.

[Bolkonsky]

Ok, first lets separate a few things out here.

Your router basically has 2 IP addresses, one for the WAN interface, and one for the LAN interface.

The WAN interface will be assigned by your ISP, and may change, but usually doesnt unless you reboot. Some ISPs (Qwest I know) forces out a change after 7 days. We will work around that later.

Yeah this much is good, I'm fine with the dynamic WAN IP. To get a static one, you need to have a business connection which is more expensive.

Your internal LAN interface will start with 192 (10 is possible but most home networks are 192.168). If I read your post above correctly you assigned an address of 192.168.255, which is impossible. You are missing an octet there. Did you mean 192.168.1.255?

Yes I did, sorry.

If so, then this is half of your problem. You cannot use x.x.x.255, that is reserved as a broadcast address (NetBIOS and stuff like that uses that). You should only use 1 through 254. You are probably getting all kinds of traffic collision because of this.

Yeah it's not set to that anymore, when I upgraded to Windows 7 I did a reformat, and then when I got my SSD I did a reformat. Right now it's on automatic settings, I don't even know how to do that on Windows 7.

The other half of your problem, again if I am reading you correctly, is that you have multiple routers on your network. You can do that, if things are set up properly, most likely they are not. Remove the second router from the network, for now its just getting in the way.

Well here's the issue with that. My ISP's router is Wireless G. The router is about as far away as it possibly could be from me, and the range is terrible. I get a very weak signal with a dual band network card. Phones, tablets, MP3 players, my Kindle, printers, Roku, none of those can connect from my room. Which is why I bought a Wireless N router. Now, my network works like this:

Internet>ISP Router>Netgear Wireless N (the one I bought)>All the network devices.

At the moment, that's over a dozen, between 3 phones, two MP3 players, a ROKU, 3 laptops, my PC, a printer, an alarm clock (yes we have a wireless alarm clock) three tablets a Kindle, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. Then add two PCs and a server to that via Ethernet. Simply put, the ISP router has given us more performance issues, and even after being replaced 3 times, it still needs to be restarted every once in a while. The thing gets so hot, I'm surprised it hasn't melted the plastic. My guess is that's the issue. So between range and performance, I bought my Wireless-N router, which has no problems whatsoever. (This is after three straight Wireless-N Linksys routers, all three of which failed within a month.) So in short, I have to use the Wireless-N network. Now before you ask, yes I did call the ISP and about not getting a Wireless-N router, they don't even offer one if I want to pay for it.

Now if I want to play some games, and host any game, from my desktop PC, I have to forward the ports to my PC. This involves forwarding the port first from my ISP router, to my Netgear, and then to my PC. Now I could, on my old router, give my server a static LAN IP, so I could connect to shell with a preset on PuTTY, over the local network. So what I need to do is give my Wireless-N router a static LAN IP, and my PC a static LAN PC on my Wireless-N router.

Set your routers internal interface to 192.168.1.1, reboot it.

This is what it is.

Make sure your PCs are all set to receive DHCP, reboot them.

OK, did this.

Once they come up, run the ipconfig command via DOS window, and write down all the IPs.

Connected to the Wireless-G, they're all 192.168.1.xxx and connected to the Wireless-N they're all 10.0.0.xxx

Ping everything from everything else. Make sure all your machines respond. If one doesnt then check settings and make sure you dont have a weird subnet mask out there. For this they should all be 255.255.255.0.

All the ones I can ping are that. I can't ping the Roku so I just turned it off for now.

Once everything is up and running, go through the port forwarding stuff on your router, the manual is here. Pick something that doesnt use a common port, like a game. Your ISP probably does block stuff like port 80 and port 25 so people are not hosting websites and mail servers.

Yeah but the issue is that for some random reason, it changes the LAN IP. One day it will be 192.168.1.2 and another day it will be 192.168.1.3 Whenever someone connects a new device, it changes, and my ports forward to the old device.

If everything works ok, then leave it as is and see if your ISP changes your IP address. If they do, I will tell you about DynamicDNS and how to get around it.

Yeah they change it every six months or so. If you remember, I was using DynDNS since I don't have a static IP, to log onto mjollnir's shell so I didn't get locked out. I love that service, it works great. I can also get to my server like that, if I'm outside my network.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Yeah but the issue is that for some random reason, it changes the LAN IP. One day it will be 192.168.1.2 and another day it will be 192.168.1.3 Whenever someone connects a new device, it changes, and my ports forward to the old device.

You manually set the internal IP and it changes?? That sounds like a firmware problem, have you tried updating it?

[Bolkonsky]

You manually set the internal IP and it changes?? That sounds like a firmware problem, have you tried updating it?

No, I can't manually set it, that's the problem. I need to, but there's no options anywhere. And no, there's no firmware updates. I'll give the manual a read-through tonight.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Its probably under the Advanced network settings. If you dont get it figured out, set a SECURE password to it, open it up to remote management, and send me the IP and I will check it out for you.

[Bolkonsky]

I think I finally found it:
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/16728

Talk about hidden away. Thanks for the help! It seems to be working now: http://coglory.dyndns.org/