On Fri, 2011-10-14 at 00:59 -0700, Paul Allen Newell wrote: > A long time ago when I first struggled and figured out how to set up a > LAN network, I got some advice about how I should alloc the numbers. 1) > start static address at *.*.*.10, 2) put WAPs at *.*.*.245, and 3) for a > gateway of 192.168.1.1, assign your router that connects to the 3rd > party (Verizon) to be 192.168.2.2. > > I have never really found documentation to support such, but my network > behaves nicely so I don't argue. Out of the various IP ranges [1] that are available for private use, because they are not, and will not, be used as public IPs on the internet, there are really only two addresses in each block with special meanings: The ones that *END* with 0 or 255. You should not try to use those addresses *for* equipment, they used for things like broadcasting (e.g. sending traffic to that IP will be sent to all IPs on the LAN), and wildcarding (e.g. firewall rules will be applied to all IPs in that range). 1. 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 169.254.0.0 to 169.254.255.255 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_network and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link-local_address for some details about those ranges It's common practice to use an address ending with 254 for routers and gateway, but it's purely customary. The address is not treated differently by any equipment, than any other address. Before home routers became commonplace, it was customary for the first computer on the network to be the gateway, and it's address usually ended with 1. It's merely handy for people who might have to type addresses in, to pick one of the ones at the end of the range, rather than try to remember which other address was used. As for how to allocate IPs within a LAN, that's up to you. Some people have all IPs in the range, that they're using, available for use. Some people just use a small section of the range. They may let IPs ending in 1 to 100 be used for dynamic addresses (e.g. DHCP clients), and leave the rest for static addresses (e.g. network servers). Some people put clients into the network starting from the 1 end of the range, with incrementing numbers, and servers into the network from the 254 end of the range, using decrementing numbers. If the users aren't doing machine to machine stuff, then they probably don't care what the IPs are, at all. If they're doing file sharing between Windows boxes, they're probably going to use machine names, with SMB handling the IP/name resolution for them. Again, not caring what the IPs are. > I am helping my niece set up her network for her apartment / roommates > and find that I don't want to give her the advice I was given as I can't > prove its worth. Plus, she and the roommates are all living on wireless > DCHP and I never dealt with that (translation is the one laptop I do > have I just let it do its thing and turn a blind eye). > > They are all Windows-centric so I am trying to find best practice > regardless of opSys. Probably best to let something handle it automatically, if none of them will be able to manage it for themselves. Which usually means having a modem/router running all the time, and it handling address allocation. Most home modem/router devices are set up that way, by default. -- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686 Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists. -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
