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How does a Device Obtain an IP Address and Subnet Mask? 115
See Table 4 for an example about how a network (only four computers
represented) and a Router might be configured.
Table 4 IP Addressing and Subnet Masking
How does a Device
Obtain an IP
Address and Subnet
Mask?
There are three different ways to obtain an IP address and the subnet
mask. These are:
■ Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Addressing
■ Static Addressing
■ Automatic Addressing (Auto-IP Addressing)
DHCP Addressing The Router contains a DHCP server, which allows computers on your
network to obtain an IP address and subnet mask automatically. DHCP
assigns a temporary IP address and subnet mask which gets reallocated
once you disconnect from the network.
DHCP will work on any client Operating System such as Windows
®
95,
Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0. Also, using DHCP means that the same
IP address and subnet mask will never be duplicated for devices on the
network. DHCP is particularly useful for networks with large numbers of
users on them.
Static Addressing You must enter an IP Address and the subnet mask manually on every
device. Using a static IP and subnet mask means the address is
permanently fixed.
Auto-IP Addressing Network devices use automatic IP addressing if they are configured to
acquire an address using DHCP but are unable to contact a DHCP server.
Automatic IP addressing is a scheme where devices allocate themselves
an IP address at random from the industry standard subnet of
169.254.x.x (with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0). If two devices allocate
Device IP Address Subnet Mask
PC 1 192.168.1.8 255.255.0.0
PC 2 192.168.201.30 255.255.0.0
PC 3 192.168.113.155 255.255.0.0
PC 4 192.168.002.230 255.255.0.0
Router 192.168.002.72 255.255.0.0