Netopia 4541, 4542 manual User’s Reference Guide

8-14 User’s Reference Guide

Numerous factors influence the choice of served address. It is difficult to specify the address that will be served to a particular client in all circumstances. However, when the address server has been configured, and the clients involved have no prior address serving interactions, the Netopia 4541/4542 will generally serve the first unused address from the first address pool with an available address. The Netopia 4541/4542 starts from the pool on the first row and continues to the pool on the last row of this screen.

Once the address server and/or the clients have participated in address serving transactions, different rules apply:

■When requesting an address, a client will often suggest an address to be assigned, such as the one it was last served. The Netopia 4541/4542 will attempt to honor this request if the address is available. The client stores this address in non-volatile storage, for example, on disk, and the specific storage method/location differs depending on the client operating system.

■When requesting an address, a client may provide a client identifier, or, if it does not, the Netopia 4541/4542 may construct a pseudo-client identifier for the client. When the client subsequently requests an address, the Netopia 4541/4542 will attempt to serve the address previously associated with the pseudo-client identifier. This is normally the last address served to the client.

■Otherwise, the Netopia will select the least-recently used available address, starting from the first address in the first pool and ending with the last address in the last pool.

Note: The address serving pools on this screen are tied to the IP subnets configured on the IP Subnets screen. Changes to the IP Subnets screen may affect this screen. In particular, deleting a subnet on the IP Subnets screen will delete the corresponding address serving pool, if any, on this screen.