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Airplane777
join:2004-06-20
4 edits | Let APs do DHCP ? At my hotel hotspots, I let my router hand out the IP addresses to all WiFi users. But...
I'm thinking of turning off DHCP in my router and turning on DHCP in each of the APs.
When I remote into my Internet gateway routers, I will see the IP addresses of the users. But with the router handing out IP addresses, I won't have any idea at all which AP a users is on (or at least the AP he originated on, assuming he didn't walk around the hotel and hand off to another AP).
I have one hotel with 11 APs and I would like to know which AP a particular IP (user) is on. So I figure if I let the APs do DHCP, and knowing the IP range assigned to each AP, I will naturally know the AP each user originated on.
Am I correct in my thinking there?
Thanks. | |
|  davidpaj
join:2002-04-22
| Re: Let APs do DHCP ? said by Airplane777  :At my hotel hotspots, I let my router hand out the IP addresses to all WiFi users. But... I'm thinking of turning off DHCP in my router and turning on DHCP in each of the APs. When I remote into my Internet gateway routers, I will see the IP addresses of the users. But with the router handing out IP addresses, I won't have any idea at all which AP a users is on (or at least the AP he originated on, assuming he didn't walk around the hotel and hand off to another AP). I have one hotel with 11 APs and I would like to know which AP a particular IP (user) is on. So I figure if I let the APs do DHCP, and knowing the IP range assigned to each AP, I will naturally know the AP each user originated on. Am I correct in my thinking there? Thanks. Might be correct, some may disagree, but my general feeling is the less the AP has to do as far as network backend the better. | |
| | bryandj23
join:2002-08-15
Bay City, MI
| Re: Let APs do DHCP ? I may be wrong here...but here's my thought...
If each AP were a different segment (for example, 10.1.0.1, 10.2.0.1, 10.3.0.1, etc), and you had a DHCP on the backend of your AP's configured with seperate scopes, I would think that the server would hand out IP's based on which AP the client connects to.
On my home network (Windows 2000) running DHCP, I have my wireless router on a different segment from the rest of my network. The DHCP server in W2k hands out 10.23.0.x addresses for the wired network, and 10.23.1.x for neighbors connecting to the wireless. | |
| | | 
superdog
I Need A Drink
Premium,MVM
join:2001-07-13
Lebanon, PA
| Re: Let APs do DHCP ? Bob, On a small network/AP that only has a few users per AP, You would be fine running DHCP in the AP. When it gets loaded up is when the trouble starts. Most AP's need all the horsepower they can get above 30 users, and DHCP is just another thing to add strain to it. Most of the AP's that I have worked with have an arp table in them showing all of the MAC's that are local and ones that it sees but are remote. If You look in the router to see which MAC is associated with which IP, You could then look at the arp table and see what MAC is coming thru which AP. It might be a little more of a hassle?, but at least the router is still taking care of DHCP.
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| Airplane777
join:2004-06-20
| Hi all:
Thank you all for the info.
You guys are right. I probably will be overworking the AP too much if I turn on dhcp, which could cause me to wind up with locked up APs...and have to power recycle them too much. Right now they are operating very stabily. So I guess I better hadn't ask for trouble with this dhcp stuff...lol.
My one hotel has 11 APs, and on some days there are a whole lot of users...sometimes up to about 30 to 40 different users a day.
And if a lot of them are put in just one section of the hotel, I might wind up with a bunch of users on just two or three of the APs...if the users aren't spread out throughout the hotel.
Tim, what you say sounds real good, except I have to figure how to remote past my Internet gateway router, so as to be able to look at my APs, so that I can try to see that arp table you are talking about. | |
| | robbin
Premium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
| Re: Let APs do DHCP ? said by Airplane777 :...Tim, what you say sounds real good, except I have to figure how to remote past my Internet gateway router, so as to be able to look at my APs, so that I can try to see that arp table you are talking about. Can you put a cheap computer in the local network there. If so it would be easy to remote into it using something like UltraVNC and then you would have access to the entire network. | |
| | | Airplane777
join:2004-06-20
1 edit | Re: Let APs do DHCP ? Hi robbin:
Thanks for the suggestion. At one hotel we did the computer thing, to let us remote in.
But at all our other hotels, the hotel owners are cheeeeeeap and don't want to pay for a computer to do that.
Maybe I will have to do some port forwarding in order to be able to remotely manage my APs. The APs I have don't have SNMP, which I understand makes it easier to remote into and manage.
Fortunately the internet gateway I use, constantly monitors the APs, and automatically emails me if an AP locks up, gets stolen, etc. | |
| joemaloy
join:2004-12-21
Tonopah, AZ | If you have access to the network why cant you just give the AP a static IP, you could still use DHCP at the router but it wont change a static IP,and you can just put the AP address in and go straight in. Unless I'm not understanding something. | |
| | Airplane777
join:2004-06-20
1 edit | Re: Let APs do DHCP ? Hi joemaloy:
I might try that again with a private static IP. Before I had trouble trying to get through the gateway, into the APs. The gateway seemed to block me getting to my APs. Fortunately the APs I use are veeeery stable, and the gateway emails me right away if there is a problem. But it would be nice to be able to remotely manage the APs sometime.
I will try to remote into the APs again, when I remote into some of the hotel gateways I installed. I might get lucky.
I know all the AP private static IP addresses that I assigned to the hotels that I installed in. That way if there is an alarm, I know exactly the AP and its location.
Thanks | |
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