ZyXEL Communications 642R Series RIP Setup, Dhcp Configuration, IP Pool Setup, DNS Server Address

Prestige 642R Series ADSL Router

3.3.3 RIP Setup

RIP (Routing Information Protocol) allows a router to exchange routing information with other routers. The RIP Direction field controls the sending and receiving of RIP packets. When set to Both, the Prestige will broadcast its routing table periodically and incorporate the RIP information that it receives; when set to None, it will not send any RIP packets and will ignore any RIP packets received.

The Version field controls the format and the broadcasting method of the RIP packets that the Prestige sends (it recognizes both formats when receiving). RIP-1is universally supported; but RIP-2 carries more information. RIP-1 is probably adequate for most networks, unless you have a unusual network topology. Both RIP-2Band RIP-2Msends the routing data in RIP-2 format; the difference being that RIP-2Buses subnet broadcasting while RIP-2Muses multicasting. Multicasting can reduce the load on non-router machines since they generally do not listen to the RIP multicast address and so will not receive the RIP packets. However, if one router uses multicasting, then all routers on your network must use multicasting as well.

By default, RIP direction is set to Both and the Version set to RIP-1.

3.3.4 DHCP Configuration

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) allows the individual clients (workstations) to obtain the TCP/IP configuration at start-up from a centralized DHCP server. The Prestige has built-in DHCP server capability, enabled by default, which means it can assign IP addresses, an IP default gateway and DNS servers to Windows 95, Windows NT and other systems that support the DHCP client. The Prestige can also act as a surrogate DHCP server where it relays IP address assignment from the actual DHCP server to the clients.

IP Pool Setup

The Prestige is pre-configured with a pool of 32 IP addresses starting from 192.168.1.33 to 192.168.1.64 for the client machines. This leaves 31 IP addresses, 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.32 (excluding the Prestige itself which has a default IP of 192.168.1.1) for other server machines, e.g., server for mail, FTP, telnet, web, etc., that you may have.

DNS Server Address

DNS (Domain Name System) is for mapping a domain name to its corresponding IP address and vice versa, e.g., the IP address of www.zyxel.com is 204.217.0.2. The DNS server is extremely important because without it, you must know the IP address of a machine before you can access it. The DNS server addresses that you enter in the DHCP setup are passed to the client machines along with the assigned IP address and subnet mask.

There are two ways that an ISP disseminates the DNS server addresses. The first is for an ISP to tell a customer the DNS server addresses, usually in the form of an information sheet, when s/he signs up. If your ISP does give you the DNS server addresses, enter them in the DNS Server fields in DHCP Setup, otherwise, leave them blank.

Some ISP’s choose to pass the DNS servers using the DNS server extensions of PPP IPCP (IP Control Protocol) after the connection is up. If your ISP did not give you explicit DNS servers, chances are the DNS

Internet Access 3-3