@home --> @COX (IP Lease...whats up with this?)

RubberDuckie · Post by **RubberDuckie** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 4:17 pm

I got the @comcast worked out for my friend in New Mexico, but now my internet provider COX is changing over.

It is simple....just set to use DHCP and auto-obtain IP and your good to go.
(Well thats all I know now...I assume they give IPs baised on MAC addresses like everyone else)

Here is where my question starts....they are saying that the lease on the IP is 15 minutes now.
And that every 15 minutes they will Force new IPs.
I consider myself to be network savey....but leven with a 15 minute lease, if you dont reboot you would keep the IP even past 15 minutes, Correct?????

How can they FORCE an IP change while the OS is running?
If it is possible...this would kill lots of things like game servers (Im sure they want to stop this), RW, Dial Pad conversation, ....the list goes on

Surely it is a new IP when you reboot....therefore if you have a router, you would keep the same IP for a longer time.

This is what their Tech Support told me.

poop · Post by **poop** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 6:54 pm

It is the nature of DHCP. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol...

What happens is your computer will automatically try to obtain a lease on an IP at boot up. That lease has a built in time limit. When your lease is up, your network card will ask for another lease, or renew. Your computer does not need to reboot to change the IP address it uses. So you could be getting a different IP every 15 minutes, which woudl suck.

Unless you get the same IP when your lease is renewed, you won't be able to do anything but surf the web. You will get booted from games, you cannot telnet/remote login anywhere, and you cannot run any servers for longer than 15 minutes if your IP keeps changing. I have a hard time believing tthey will give you a new IP every 15 minutes.

A friend of mine on DSL gets a new IP every 8 hours. So every now and then he gets booted from games and his server goes down until his dynamic DNS provider catches back up. It is a pain at 8 hours intervals. Imagine 1/4 hour intervals.

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 8:02 pm

Yeah its a royal pain in the ass and sometiems u do need to reboot.. Charter up here was @home and had a static IP now they they switched to their own network they use DHCP and renew the IP every 12 hours. My buddy's comp running XP has to be rebooted to gain net access again... Why can't they just keep it simple issue static ip's and let the world go on like it use too... GRRR

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 8:45 pm

You should never have to reboot to renew a lease.

Worse comes to worse and you think it's not renewing, you can use WINIPCFG (for Win9x) or IPCONFIG (for NT/2K/XP) to renew it manually.

LikeLinus · Post by **LikeLinus** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 10:12 pm

Man that sucks. I'm hacked that they moved over to DHCP. I do web development and it really sucks not to have a stack IP, now i cant host pages (not for the net, but for myself and work) and my FTP.

Comcast told me that they plan on renewing your IP address every 7 days. So thats not bad...i could still run my ftp and just have to change it. Also the guy told me that as long as my computer was on (even after 7days) that i'd still have the IP (so its not forced), but that once i reboot i'd change IP's of course.

Still a real pain..but what are ya gunna do?

DSL is available at my parents house about 3 minutes away from me...but i'll be damned if it isn't offered here. That sucks!

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 10:31 pm

FP for us geeks that works just fine, but for the everyday "i don't know shit about computers" people that isn't an option...

RubberDuckie · Post by **RubberDuckie** » Fri Jan 18, 2002 1:20 am

That will suck if it is true....15 minutes seems VERY short if you ask me.
I can see a 7 day lease, but 15 minutes. Seems like they would be overloading their system just updating IPs all the time. Only time will tell, I guess.

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Fri Jan 18, 2002 1:42 am

I'm wondering if he didn't mean a 15 hour lease... That would make more sense 15 min is crazy...

shaggy · Post by **shaggy** » Fri Jan 18, 2002 2:50 am

Would the Lease obtained; Lease expires fields in ipconfig be accurate for gauging when a new ip would be forced?

Kakarot · Post by **Kakarot** » Fri Jan 18, 2002 9:38 am

Actually, your computer will attempt to renew your lease at the half way mark of the lease(ie.. lease is for 2 days, it will send a renew packet at the one day mark). Now, whether they can force it to change IP's, I don't know. I've never heard of that before... but it may be something new. Also, I can't see them doing a 15 min lease... the DHCP traffic created would bring the network down to its knees(especially considering the connections to clients' modems are very slow in LAN terms).

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Jan 18, 2002 11:39 am

15 minutes sounds absurd. The shortest I've ever seen is 12 days.

There's a program/service by the way, for those of you with FTP servers, that creates a virtual hostname that always accesses your FTP server even if you have a dynamic IP.

I don't know how it works - never used it: http://www.algenta.com/software/winip/