ZyXEL Communications HS100/HS100W manual IP Address and Subnet Mask, DNS Server Address Assignment

HomeSafe User’s Guide

)Regardless of your particular situation, do not create an arbitrary IP address; always follow the guidelines above. For more information on address assignment, please refer to RFC 1597, Address Allocation for Private Internets and RFC 1466, Guidelines for Management of IP Address Space.

3.6.2IP Address and Subnet Mask

Similar to the way houses on a street share a common street name, so too do computers on a LAN share one common network number.

Where you obtain your network number depends on your particular situation. If the ISP or your network administrator assigns you a block of registered IP addresses, follow their instructions in selecting the IP addresses and the subnet mask.

If the ISP did not explicitly give you an IP network number, then most likely you have a single user account and the ISP will assign you a dynamic IP address when the connection is established. The Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) reserved this block of addresses specifically for private use; please do not use any other number unless you are told otherwise. Let's say you select 192.168.1.0 as the network number; which covers 254 individual addresses, from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254 (zero and 255 are reserved). In other words, the first three numbers specify the network number while the last number identifies an individual computer on that network.

Once you have decided on the network number, pick an IP address that is easy to remember, for instance, 192.168.1.1, for your HomeSafe, but make sure that no other device on your network is using that IP address.

The subnet mask specifies the network number portion of an IP address. Your HomeSafe will compute the subnet mask automatically based on the IP address that you entered. You don't need to change the subnet mask computed by the HomeSafe unless you are instructed to do otherwise.

3.6.3 DNS Server Address Assignment

Use DNS (Domain Name System) to map a domain name to its corresponding IP address and vice versa, for instance, 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 computer before you can access it.

The HomeSafe can get the DNS server addresses in the following ways.

1.The ISP tells you the DNS server addresses, usually in the form of an information sheet, when you sign up. If your ISP gives you DNS server addresses, enter them in the DNS Server fields in DHCP Setup.

2.If the ISP did not give you DNS server information, leave the DNS Server fields in DHCP Setup set to 0.0.0.0 for the ISP to dynamically assign the DNS server IP addresses.

3.6.4 WAN MAC Address

Every Ethernet device has a unique MAC (Media Access Control) address. The MAC address is assigned at the factory and consists of six pairs of hexadecimal characters, for example, 00:A0:C5:00:00:02.

You can configure the WAN port's MAC address by either using the factory default or cloning the MAC address from a computer on your LAN. Once it is successfully configured, the address will be copied to the "rom" file (ZyNOS configuration file). It will not change unless you change the setting or upload a different "rom" file.

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