My kingdom for a No matter what brand or operating system you use, any PC you want to connect to the Internet needs an IP address. But IP addresses are used only for Internet: today almost any network is IP network. From two home computers connected by a cable to hundreds (or thousands) of computers (printers, routers or other devices) that are part of a corporate network.
When teams are small, usually is sufficient to assign IP numbers manually, but when there are many units need to automate the task. The service used to dynamically assign IP is DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). The service supports DHCP client and a DHCP server (may be several reasons of high availability).
A client IP address can take several forms.
a) has fixed IP address configured on your network card.
The first verification takes a device you need is to see if IP address is a manually set (Fixed IP). Set up a manual IP address disables the ability to obtain an address by another method. This method of allocating addresses will not perform any check on where the computer is connected, so if you have a computer with a static IP and move it to another network, although it has IP address, not communicate with the rest of the network.
b) receives a DHCP assigned IP
Having no fixed IP address, the teams carry out a DHCP request to all computers on the network informing the MAC address (physical address only of the network card). DHCP servers that receive the request respond stating that they have to assign IP. The customer finally selects one of the servers and informs you that accepts the IP settings you provide.
When the customer accepts the offer, the server checks a MAC address list that has to know if there is a reserve for that network interface (IP Reserved.) That IP is assigned only to the MAC number, so you always have the same IP every time we turn the computer without manual configuration.
If the MAC does not have a reservation, the server checks a list of addresses assigned to see if you have recently been assigned an IP to the MAC. If yes, it assigns the same IP. If the MAC is new, find the first free IP range that has to assign and assigns.
When the DHCP server has no free PC, the IP looks older than she already assigned to another MAC, but not currently in use, and assigns to the new MAC.
Upon completion of the IP because they are all reserved or in use, the DHCP server does not deliver more IP addresses, even if it means leaving the PC without IP. No matter if a reserved IP is not in use, the server will deliver it to another MAC.
c) assign itself an address.
When all else fails go to the address APIPA (Automatic Private Internet Protocol Addressing). APIPA assigns an address in the range 169.254.0.1 to 169.254.255.254 with mask 255.255.0.0. To find a free address, used to broadcast network. This method may be useful only in a very small system. It is important to note that if a DHCP server on our network and displays any of these addresses, we will certainly have a network problem. The consultation APIPA DHCP servers periodically, so if a DHCP server is present on the network, the computer prompts and neglects IP Addressing APIPA.
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