IP Address Help

[Jon Stratis]

Network issues abound... and they can be pretty frustrating. Having dealt with a lot of networking in the past, i can certainly give some tips.

First, a little networking background. Every device on a network has an IP - basically, an address that's composed of 4 parts, separated by a period. Each part contains a number 0-255. On a single network (a home network, one you set up for your team, etc) the first, second, and third numbers are going to be the same between all devices. So setting up a network like the instructions say means everything will be 10.tt.tt.xxx, where tttt is your team number. For the Robettes, it's 10.21.77.xxx.

Now, most of the time, computers on a network will get their ID address dynamically from a DHCP server (something that is included in every router). That means you plug it in, it automagically figures out a legal IP, and sets itself. you're done! Unfortunately, a DHCP server most often assigns IP's starting at the low end of the scale - it'll start with 1, then 2, then 3, etc. With FIRST having chosen to give all the devices low numbered IP addresses, conflicts like this are bound to happen - other laptops and wireless devices you connect to your network can get assigned those IP's before you have a chance to connect the proper device to them!

Now with a FIRST network, you want to set static (not dynamic) IP addresses for certain devices, as dictated by page 6 of http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...ation-0-5c.pdf

for the router, you need to visit it's webpage, which is simply http:// followed by it's IP address. If your computer obtains it's IP dynamically, the first three numbers will be the same for the router, while the last one is usually a 1, unless you've already changed it. You can browse around on that, and finding where to set a static IP is pretty straight forward.

Setting the static IP address for different devices is done in different ways. follow these instructions for you computer, based on your OS: http://portforward.com/networking/staticip.htm

For problems with your computer connecting to a specific IP, i would highly recommend setting it to a dynamic IP (if you follow the link above, basically select "obtain IP address automatically" instead of specifying one. do the same for the DNS servers). That will at least allow you to get on the network, although your IP address won't be what you want. From there, you can log into the router, and most routers have a status page that will show all connected clients and their IP's. If you don't know what's what, the easiest way is to disconnect items and see what disappears.

The camera is set up in a very similar manor to the router - you visit it's webpage and can change the settings there. Unfortunately, this is where things get tricky - the instructions tell you that the camera should be 192.168.0.90, while your computer is 10.tt.tt.6. Those addresses won't talk to each other, even if they're plugged in directly to each other. You'll have to change the computers address to 192.168.0.xx in order to get them to talk over the orange cable. For our team, we found it simplest to connect the computer to the router over the wireless (so that adapter has an IP of 10.21.77.6), and the camera directly (with that adapter having an IP of 192.168.0.3). This ensures that the camera is always set to the IP it needs to be set to.

Our team is going to be getting everything else properly configured tomorrow, but the best advice is to follow the instructions for all of that.


When dealing with networks and IP issues, expect problems. Also don't expect to be able to solve them easily right off the bat. Last night, we were having problems with the camera IP and getting everything talking properly - 1 mentor and 2 students were ready to throw the computer out the window, because they didn't have much experience with it all. When they called me over, i could solve the problems for them, but that's only because i've been setting up and administrating networks of various sizes for 7+ years (there are currently 8 computers in my house, all running different OS's.... yikes!). There is a very steep learning curve when dealing with networks, especially on windows - at least, i've always found windows to be the most confusing platform.