IP Addressing

Is anybody familiar with any good reference material that explains in detail how to configure IP addresses for a LAN?

For a simple LAN you need to set IP addresses in the same subnet. For example, on most networks, computers are set with an IP address like 10.0.0.x or 192.168.0.x. You can change x from 1 up to 255. You also need to make sure that the computers are set with a subnet of 255.255.255.0 on a network like this.

You don't really say if you are just doing a simple network where the above info would work, or whether it's something more complicated that you want to achieve. Perhaps more info would help me answer better

I agree with edwinbrains, but I'd like to add something:

On small networks, a 24-bit subnet (255.255.255.0) should suffice if you have less than 254 nodes. There are three subnets allocated for private networks, and they are as follows (someone correct me if I am a little off):

• 10.x.x.x
• 172.16.x.x
• 192.168.x.x
• 169.254.x.x

That last one is guaranteed to be private, but is part of Microsoft Windows Automatic Private Addressing, introduced in Windows 2000 as a means to communicate via TCP/IP without manual node configuration or a DHCP server. I'd recommend you stick to one of the other three, preferrably the 192.168.x.x subnet, which seems more or less defacto.

Stay away from the 169.254.x.x this is known as an APIPA address and is meant for nonrouted small business environments, usually less than 25 clients. Notice the keyword NONROUTED.

The APIPA service also checks regularly for the presence of a DHCP server (every five minutes, according to Microsoft). If it detects a DHCP server on the network, APIPA stops, and the DHCP server replaces the APIPA networking addresses with dynamically assigned addresses.

Thank you all for the responces. I do have a two node network in which print and file sharing is operational. I was just looking around for some more information on IP addressing. I do appreciate the information that was supplied, and thank you for taking the time to respond.

Flatlander4130