Change from Static IP to DHCP

[Knocka]

I have a router that will statically assign an IP by DHCP and I know my DTV's MAC address. I am currently using a static IP. Many of you here helped me get TivoWebPlus working recently and I appreciate it.

I prefer to have set up the DTV to use DHCP. Can anyone point me in the right direction to change from from a static IP to DHCP (and back again, when I mess things up)?

Thanks.

[chris22]

With Static DHCP, you really cannot mess it up.

[JWThiers]

With Static DHCP, you really cannot mess it up.
As long as it is STATIC DHCP and not a DHCP with a never expiring lease it won't be a problem, but if it is a never expiring lease you will be in for a head ache the first time your router resets. Had that discussion before. Its not unheard of, just not as common or as generally well understood as I would like. Of course If you have it up and running with a static IP now, why change it? The hard part is done (setting up the network in the first place).

[Knocka]

It is static IP. The reason is that I recently had to change the IP address range in my house so that I could connect to my office using a VPN. If the Tivo were set to DHCP, and assigned a static IP, then I would just have to change that Static IP assignment in the router, not change it on the Tivo.

[JWThiers]

Excellent, If that is the case , You got good reason and the hardware to support.

I have 2 reasons why I am so cautious, first I believe if it ain't broke don't fix it, and also early on I spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out what was happening to my network settings. Ip address would change and I couldn't find it again would have to pull the drive. What happened was I was switching from a wireless usb adapter to a bridge setup, which required new router (also added G support) and bridges and figured I would go ahead and use DHCP with never expiring leases. This was in the rainy season in central FL and power flickers are common. I changed brands of gear from linksys to belkin and by default they use a different subnet. When the power would flicker the and I would lose network settings and my tivo network settings would change. Ended up being a couple of problems one of which was you guessed it DHCP biting me, This is also when I got a serial cable (If you don't have one yet, get one, see my sig).

Another thing that was biting me was when I pulled the drive I would just rezipper it from the start and keep the recordings, Worked great except if it found an author file it would use that as a base and it had a line assigning my old ip address. When I originally zippered I was using a different subnet and zipper would go back to my old subnet. Thats frustrating to have all the lights on the network adapter but not be able to find it on the subnet.

[SemperFi]

I am thinking about doing the same thing Knocka. I just upgraded my first tivo to 6.2a and used my backup sysinit.author file and already had that stuff in there. Since I never did the 4.0 upgrade on my direct tivos I hadn't given it another thought. I have been out of the loop for quite some time and have read many threads on 2 different forums the past week. I want to get MRV and other features going while I am on the upgrade kick.

The thing I was reading that has me worried is I remember people having problems with MRV if dhcp is off and I assign an IP in my **.author file. Is this a big deal? I would just as soon stay with my current setup but I want MRV or should I say my wife wants MRV.

[JWThiers]

I am thinking about doing the same thing Knocka. I just upgraded my first tivo to 6.2a and used my backup sysinit.author file and already had that stuff in there. Since I never did the 4.0 upgrade on my direct tivos I hadn't given it another thought. I have been out of the loop for quite some time and have read many threads on 2 different forums the past week. I want to get MRV and other features going while I am on the upgrade kick.

The thing I was reading that has me worried is I remember people having problems with MRV if dhcp is off and I assign an IP in my **.author file. Is this a big deal? I would just as soon stay with my current setup but I want MRV or should I say my wife wants MRV.
I have used both DHCP and Static IP addresses and neither is an issue with MRV. Tivo sends out a beacon that other tivo use to identify them and report their address to each other. You can also add the ip addresses of your other tivos to the /etc/hosts file so even if that is not working your tivos will look there for a tivo.

My personal opinion is to use static IP's. When you use zipper to hack you assign a static address to begin with anyway, if you do your setup right to begin with there should be no reason to change it. The ONLY possible exception to not use a static IP is if your router supports Static DHCP and even then I probably wouldn't mess with it unless you had to change you network around (in a MAJOR way) anyway for some reason like Knocka. If it ain't broke why fix it.

[SemperFi]

That is cool JW. I thought I read others having problems if the dhcp wasn't enabled. I just wanted to follow up and ask the question.

I finally got my slices on my other unit and will be hacking it tonight or tomorrow. Now I need another switch as my router is full.