Using static IP address for Wifi dongle

[plutonium233]

I recently set up a BCD536HP on Proscan for a radio feed and remote control. I work away from home a week or more at a time so I rely on this functionality to be able to access the scanner and its feeds. However, I found out today the Wifi dongle is set up for DHCP. There was a power outage where the scanner is located, but when the scanner came back online, it was inaccessible.

I was able to guide a friend through some troubleshooting over the phone, and it turns out the Wifi dongle's IP address had changed when power was restored. This meant I had to explain how to change the Com Port URL IP and the Audio Control URL IP to the correct one so that service could be restored.

Does anyone know how to change the configuration such that the Wifi dongle can be assigned a static IP address? If I could do so, I would be able to make the entire system come back online without any need for local intervention.

 

[kc2kth]

Do this in your router, what you want to do is configure a DHCP reservation for the dongle. That way the dongle is still configure to use DHCP but the router will recognize it and always give it the address you reserved. This is done by associating the hardware, or mac, address of the dongle with one IP address from your DHCP scope. Check your routers documentation for specifics.

 

[plutonium233]

Gotcha, I have never used that feature before, but it should do the trick. I've seen it before on different routers and never really knew why it might be needed. I hope my router supports this as I was disappointed to find that it doesn't include a VPN server. Then again, it is an older unit.

Thanks for the tip!!

73's

 

[kc2kth]

Well if you're in the market and can handle some moderate technical work the EdgeRouter Lite is a bargain for what is included in terms of features and performance. I just used it to replace an aging $400 Sonicwall (vs. $800 for a new Sonicwall) and went from 30 Mbit/s throughput to almost 100 Mbit/s out of my Fios connection which is rated at 75 Mbit/s. The newer firmware releases (user updatable) offer a setup wizard so it's not much more effort than a NetGear router.

 

[smithken]

I have quite a few DHCP reservations on my router and they are all outside the scope of the non-reserved addresses, ie all of my reservations are between x.x.x.10 and x.x.x.199 and non-reserved addresses are between x.x.x.200 and x.x.x.254.

 

[kc2kth]

Interesting, I've never thought to set a reservation outside the DHCP scope. I had a look and it doesn't seem there is anything published by the IETF that actually defines standards around DHCP reservations. I've worked in large enterprise networks for a bit over 20 years where it's common for a DHCP range to define the boundaries for client machines. If we want a specific machine to have a specific address we leverage the reservation method for an address within that boundary. Typically outside that client address range we have addresses for devices that are statically assigned - servers, printers, network gear. In this type of environment letting admins set reservations outside that DHCP,scope,could have more serious implications! Anyhow always good to learn something new!

 

[y84media]

I purchased one of these just to use as a cheap VPN server, works great. I can even use the VPN on my laptop when I'm away from home and mount my network shared drives.

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IB8IVDQ?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00