If I want to make just one computer on my network have a static IP in order to accept port forwarding from the router, do I have to then make ALL my computers have static IP's?? I read up on some site that before I start assigning a static IP I have to turn off DHCP... I'm frustrated because I thought (and hoped) it would be possible to have just one computer on the network have a static IP whereas all the others are still dynamic. Is this impossible?? Thanks
Yes you don't have to use DHCP if you don't want to. You only use DHCP if the client requests network information, otherwise the DHCP server doesn't do anything. You can set a static IP on the client, you don't need to do anything on your router/server. Make sure you manually fill in the IP, subnet mask, and DNS servers on the client. You should be able to put just the router's IP for the DNS part, and it should work. The subnet mask is usually 255.255.255.0.
Thanks much for replying, Addis. I was reading up some more on networking (by the way, it's such a freaking pain to find even slightly advanced networking guides online; most sites seem to be too n00bish: "what's the difference between a router, hub, and switch?" and that sort of thing), and I now think that my first post might be unclear. So let me try to clarify some things. Firstly, my intent in this whole business of messing with static IP's is NOT to run a server behind my router. I just want to do some bit-torrenting (you can check out my other thread). Secondly, at the time of making my first post, I had forgotten that there can be static or dynamic IP's on two levels: the computers on a network behind the router can have static or dynamic private IP's (which is what I was talking about), but also the router connecting to the internet can have a static or a dynamic public IP assigned by the ISP (that's what I forgot about). Sooo, if I understand network theory correctly, if I am only wanting to do bit-torrenting, and am NOT running a server, then I do NOT need my router to have a static public IP, correct?? In other words, my ISP can continue to assign an IP to my router dynamically, right? It seems to me that I only need my computer behind the router to have a static private IP so that the router can forward any torrent download requests to my comp. Am I understanding this right?? If I got this stuff right, then what you said here applies to me, right? So I'll just type in a static IP address in my control panel > network connections thingy and I'll be set, right? Haha it does seem like you already gave me the answer and that I'm probably being redundant asking you to verify it again but I just want to make sure lol. Thanks!
I understood you the first time, whether you have a static or dynamic public IP from your ISP doesn't matter. The internal IP of the client running bittorrent should be static, and then have port forwarding on the router to the client.
Alright that didn't work. As soon as I put in a static IP on my computer, I can no longer connect to the internet at all. I didn't even get as far as the port forwarding. The subnet mask is indeed 255.255.255.0 according to what it says in my router's "control panel" or whatever you call it. So I put that in along with the IP but it won't connect. I also tried both leaving the DNS part blank and putting in the router's local IP into it, didn't work either way. (The way it was before when everything did work, the DNS part was always blank.)
