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Am I missing something? There does not seem to be a way to set a static IP address on the opengarage web interface. I have other systems accessing it and the IP is changing when the lease is up–which breaks the other systems.
The best way to set static IP is to use the router’s DHCP reservation (or called IP reservation) feature, which binds a specific IP to the MAC address. This way, if OpenGarage reboots, or router reboots, the IP assigned to it will remain the same.
@ray wrote:
The best way to set static IP is to use the router’s DHCP reservation (or called IP reservation) feature, which binds a specific IP to the MAC address. This way, if OpenGarage reboots, or router reboots, the IP assigned to it will remain the same.
while that may be the ‘best’ way it is not an option in my router. I am assuming from your answer that the opengarage device does not have the ability to set a static IP in the web interface? Isn’t it based off the same hardware and software as the opensprinkler (which I also have)?
What router do you use? I’ve not seen a router that does not have IP reservation (or DHCP reservation) feature.
It’s definitely possible to change the firmware to support static IP. It’s just that using static IP that way is not recommended because it can result in IP conflicts. It’s best to have the router manage static IP for you.
it’s an older wrt54g. I’m considering flashing it with dd-wrt but until then it does not have dhcp reservation.
> ip conflicts
really? then why does the open sprinkler have static ip features? 😉
OpenSprinkler firmware started several years ago, and back then IP reservation wasn’t as prevalent. On today’s routers, IP reservation is pretty much a standard feature.
I have to disagree about static IPs. First of all clearly a lot of people, such as myself, want this. The reasons are pretty obvious. Since I run the ISC DHCP server I can go and edit the configuration on that server to include the MAC address and get this done, so it’s not like I don’t know how. If I was running a commercial box, e.g. a Netgear router, and I had to replace it, there would be a nightmare of reconfiguration, completely unnecessary, if all my boxes refused static configurations. It’s also more of a nuisance this way, and means a bunch of devices will fail unnecessarily if my DHCP server fails. There are important devices that I want to be absolutely reliable when everything else on my network starts falling apart, and this is certainly one of them. Since I have 3 separate network connections, the argument that I anticipate which is that nothing will work if my router fails, is a false one. It’s also not true that static IPs are more dangerous. One can incorrectly assign an address either way, and most modern DHCP servers do a ping check before finalizing an assignment, so doing an incorrect static IP assignment is no better or worse that putting the wrong IP in a MAC reservation entry. I also heartily disagree that static IP is becoming less common. I find its absence to be rare in the devices I encounter, which are many.
How often do you have to replace a router? I personally think it’s a really bad approach to set static IP on the devices — the IP may not be compatible with your router’s IP range (especially if you change your router, the IP range may not match at all), or you may accidentally configure two devices to have the same IP causing an IP conflict. The reason routers have this DHCP reservation feature is exactly to address such issues. You are essentially trying to manually recreate what routers can do automatically.
Ray, I can see you have a definite idea about this and it is pretty set. However I think I see a different angle to much if not most of the thinking you have around this. First I have to replace the cheap routers periodically as I need to increase range and get latest features. If I had one principle router, it would be a burden to have to put all my fixed IP info into it, and arguably I don’t want that in the cable router; I want to keep the two isolated, so if I have to work on the cable router it doesn’t affect the rest of my system. I actually was forced by a cable company recently to replace one of my routers because they felt that a new router would have better IPv6 compatibility. I was glad not to have to do more extensive network configuration around that.
Also, reliability theory: I don’t want a third party item to be required to make a system work for two things to talk together. I don’t want communications to depend on an outside entity when it’s completely unnecessary. It’s always more reliable to avoid adding additional elements.
Your point that it is a bad idea to set an address on a device: if I set an address that isn’t in the range of the network, it won’t work, and I’ll go do a reset on the device and do it over. That’s just a dumb mistake, and I could just as easily make the same dumb mistake by configuring the router with a wrong address attached to the device’s MAC address; this really is an argument against doing something stupid. It won’t affect one approach more than another, and it’s no more harmful with one approach compared to another. The same can be said for putting in a wrong IP address that conflicts. These things are dumb mistakes, easily caught, and no more or less troublesome with one approach compared to another. It is NOT a convincing argument against static IPs, especially since both approaches we are arguing about are static IP approaches, the only difference being one is set in the device and one is kept in the DHCP server.
I believe you have a strong feeling about this, and it just feels wrong to you, but wouldn’t it be better to put the static IP feature in and let the customer decide? That way if someone feels as you do, they can configure it in the router. If I think that’s a horrible idea, I can program in the static IP my way. Why force your way? Not in the best open system spirit I would say.
Your last point is that I am trying to recreate what routers do automatically. In fact routers don’t automatically assign static IPs, as you well know, and that feature was added (I happen to know) to routers as a workaround for devices that were too dumb to have a static IP feature where it was really needed. It was viewed at the time as an emergency fix for the few broken devices around.I am working on the OG firmware this weekend and I do plan to include static IP in the firmware. So you can expect to see it fairly soon.
But let me comment on this line that you said: “wouldn’t it be better to put the static IP feature in and let the customer decide” — no, it’s not always a better idea. With OpenSprinkler we’ve had plenty of users who didn’t know how to properly configure the static IP, some of them did not set the gateway IP correctly, some of them set an IP that’s in a different subnet, causing the device to be not able to receive packets. If you give this option to users, they will be curious and will want to try it, sometimes without knowing how to use it correctly. Giving more flexibility is not always a better idea, this is what I learned from running the business.
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