On Friday 12 March 2004 21:34, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
Is it possible to telnet reliably to a computer that has gotten its IP address via DHCP? My assumption is that it isn't, since telnet seems to require a specific IP address and the DHCP one can change. But I'd like to be shown to be wrong.
That seems to be a disadvantage of using DHCP to assign IP addresses.
Paul Abrahams
A dynamic address is not unreliable per se, it's all about how the DHCP server is configured. (This does not go for Mickeysoft computers, since M$ has never managed to make a decent IP stack .. = :-/ IMHO. OK, they have improved _slightly_ in 2k and XP, though, but I've abandoned that ship). Under normal circumstances the address should remain the same "forever", or at least as long as the server/host is powered up and connected to the network, since it will always reclaim the same address. However, if the lease time is very short and almost all addresses are in use, the server might get a different address if it's been down for a while. My recommendation is to have DHCP-distributed dedicated addresses for servers. (Assuming that you have access to the DHCP-server or at least that you can give the administrator a hint.) The reason for that is that DHCP works like a sort of "network registration" which is useful if you're having problems and need to do troubleshooting. /Marty