Rev and Windows local networking

[Alex Tweedly]

Kurt Kaufman wrote:

> This is actually more of a Windows networking question rather than a 
> Rev question per se:
> I have a small XP Pro local network using a router. Since the router 
> is connected to the Internet via DSL, I have the Zone-Alarm firewall 
> set up on each of the 3 networked PCs; it allows shared access to PCs 
> within a given IP range.
>
> Everything OK, then one day the IP address of one of the PCs changes, 
> and Zone Alarm (as it's supposed to) prohibits access to/from the PC.  
> The Rev program's db cannot be accessed, so it will no longer function 
> across the network.
>
> I then altered the network TCP/IP setting on all of the PCs from 
> "Obtain an IP address automatically" to using a manually entered 
> address.  This has apparently solved the problem.
> The networked Rev program works again.
>
> Is there anything I have to watch out for here?  I had to manually 
> enter a default Gateway as well as a preferred DNS server; will this 
> fail if the DSL "modem" is reset?  The DSL is set up using a dynamic 
> address.
>
Depends.

Usually, the DSL router will have a fixed  "inboard" IP address (often 
192.168.1.1) and an "outboard" IP address assigned by the ISP; it's up 
to the ISP whether that's a fixed or variable address. Normally, that 
doesn't matter, because you must set your default gateway to the 
"inboard" address - so the default gateway address won't change when the 
DSL router is reset, even if it gets a new address given to it by the ISP.

The DNS server addresses rarely change (though of course the ISP can do 
what they want). You may be able to set up the the DSL router's address 
as one of the DNS servers - but that depends on whether the router 
supports that or not. A good thing to try is temporarily setting up a 
host to use dynamic addressing, and then allow it to get an address from 
the router. Then do an
"ipconfig /all" and see what the full list of DNS servers is - if the 
router's address is included, then it must support DNS, so you can go 
back to manual address assignment, and include the router in your list 
of manually configured DNS servers.

-- 
Alex Tweedly       http://www.tweedly.net



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