DHCP Retry Suggestion - fixed IPs would help

Asher - K0AU

My shack Ethernet switch is powered on the same DC supply as the Flex. The switch needs about 15 seconds to boot up and bring up its remote link to the main switch that has the network DHCP server. Problem is if I power up the Flex before the local switch has booted, the Flex doesn't acquire a DHCP Ethernet address. Not sure if the Flex doesn't wait for link enabled, or link enable is happening before the switch uplink has connected. It would be nice if the Flex continued to retry DHCP. Better yet would be hardwired IP addresses so I can remove the static DHCP configuration. In my experience infrastructure like radios and servers should always be on fixed IP addresses. Not a show stopper. Moot if we had a remote on/off feature, because I'd leave the switch on continuously.

philip.theis

Work in the IP space will be coming along in the future. They are planning on getting the ability to set a static address. All hands on deck for the 1.0 rf release now.

Tim - W4TME

Asher, If the radio can not get an IP address from a DHCP server in the time allocated in the RFC specification, it reverts to a link-local IP address. The network should be up before powering on the radio.

geep

I found out, rather tragically, at FD this weekend that the radio has no facility for setting a static IP address.  While this is not usually an issue in a home network, our FD group running N1MM uses only a network switch with all the computers set with static addresses to make the networking simple, i.e. I don't have to check and see what address DHCP assigns to each system and then do the networking piece.  I had no router at the site and would have been completely stuck had not one of our members gone home and gotten a router.  The network did not like having the router connected to the switch -- I suspect a firewall was preventing the stations seeing each other and I didn't have time to fool with it, so I ended up having to set the address with the router each time the radio powered down (and I had to do that several times, meat for another post) and the move the computer and the radio back to the switch.  It worked but awkwardly.  I hope the ability to set network parameters for a static configuration is way up on the priority list.  Makes the 6000 series radios more difficult to use in the field, IMHO.

Christopher Platt

Can you router provide a fixed IP based on the MAC address?

Ted VE3TRQ

If you look at the date of the post you responded to, Chris, you will see it is more than six years old :-)

Tim - W4TME

@Christopher Platt This would not resolve the problem because DHCP reservations function exactly the same over the network as an IP address provided from a pool.

The problem is the radio's Ethernet interface is initialized (link is established) but the network path, through the network has not been fully established. We see this commonly with WiFi bridges or "extenders" that connect the radio to the router where the DHCP server service is located. Or the radio is powered on at the same time as a intermediary Ethernet switch and it has not fully booted and passing network traffic before the radio is powered on. The radio makes 3 attempts to sollicite an IP address from a DHCP server. On a wired network with no path establishment delays, this is sufficient. If it fails to acquire an IP address, then it falls back to using a Link-Local IP address in the 169.254.0.0 /16 network address space.