Can't access internet if router's DHCP server is disabled.

[Sanjiv1958]

Firstly congratulations to you folks for this incredibly powerful product.
Install today went perfect as I followed the exact screenshot after screenshot instructions and installed fedora 14 followed by amahi. I am going to try simpler things first and then figure out the 2nd hard disk addition later.
Near total newbee to networking.
As per the install instructions -- I have turned off the DHCP server in the Amahi server.
Amahi server confirmed to be connected to network and internet could be accessed through the ethernet connection to Linksys wireless router.
Then I turned off the router's DHCP server function.
After turning that off Windows 7 client PC showed no network access -- no internet connection. My iphone and iPad had no ip address.
I needed to turn on the router's DHCP server in order to restore internet connectivity to Win 7 client PC, iPhone and iPad.
What is the problem and is there a solution?
Thank you.

[sgtfoo]

When you turn off a network's DHCP, there is no longer a way to assign IPs automatically to any device.

The alternative to DHCP (dynamic IP assignments) is using static IP.
If you want to retain internet access while DHCP is off, you can setup static IPs on your devices/computers.
You need 3 IPs to connect to your network fully...
1) device IP address
2) subnet mask
3) gateway
4) (optional) DNS

Look at your router's page from a web browser on your Win7 PC

- usually it's 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 or whatever you changed your router's IP to.

- your router's IP is the gateway IP. write it down

- the subnet mask for most consumer routers ends up being 255.255.255.0

- the IP for your device/PC could be any IP not within the DHCP pool on your router...
so if your router's DHCP pool is from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.150, then you could use anything from .2 to .99, or anything from .151 to .254

- DNS numbers get 'forwarded' from your ISP to your router, so your DNS IP can be your router's IP as well, or in this case be sure to use your amahi HDA IP as the DNS.. such as 192.168.1.10

so for example, you would assign your Win7 PC with...
IP address: 192.168.1.20
subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
gateway: 192.168.1.1
DNS primary / secondary: 192.168.1.10 / 192.168.1.1

Plug that into the TCP/IP properties of your network adapter in Win7 and you should have internet access just fine. It will stay as the static IP of that PC unless you change it back to automatic (DHCP mode) or change it to something else.

[Sanjiv1958]

Thank you very much. You have clarified in terms that I was not able to understand earlier from a zdnet networking guide.
Please clarify. -- should I turn DHCP service and watchdog ON on the Amahi server for this to work?

[sgtfoo]

Thank you very much. You have clarified in terms that I was not able to understand earlier from a zdnet networking guide.
Please clarify. -- should I turn DHCP service and watchdog ON on the Amahi server for this to work?

Yes. Even with the DHCP on, your Win7 PC will keep its IP address. The HDA will still see it too, and will still assign IPs to new devices.

[Sanjiv1958]

I wish to report nearly successful resolution of my problem and a sincere thank you again. I am in kind of disbelief that I changed a whole bunch of settings that were always left on automatic and all I used to do before was power on and off the modem and router!
So now I have turned off the DHCP server in my linksys router. The DHCP server in the Amahi machine is also not running.
I used the exact settings you suggested for the Win 7 machine (192.168.1.20), and changed the ip address to 192.168.1.21 for Playstation and 192.168.1.22 for Brite-View cinematube.
Win 7 machine can access internet fine except it pauses briefly every new page and says "resolving proxy".
Before manually assigning the static ip address to playstation it could not access the internet but after assigning above static ip address it can connect to internet. However playstation does not "see" the Amahi server. I guess this is the current major problem.
Brite-view cinematube successfully connected to Amahi server and played a little test video file as well.

I apologize for the long post but just wanted to make sure that I can successfully adopt this amazing technology.
Please also clarify in Amahi Settings -- Servers -- DHCP server has been "stopped", should I get it in the "running"state?

[sgtfoo]

yes, as I already said.. .the Amahi DHCP should be running.

[Sanjiv1958]

I have been able to successfully resolve my problem.
Thank you.

[Sanjiv1958]

I have a new question re VPN. Should I post it as a new topic?
You gave me such clear instructions that I feel like posting here 1st.
I need to forward one port 1194/udp on my router. My linksys port forwarding page asks for -- external port, internal port, and name of program. What port is 1194 external or internal.
Thank you.

[bigfoot65]

My router has a similar setup. Make the internal and external port 1194, UDP and name it anything you like Mine is called VPN.

[Sanjiv1958]

Thank you. It was internal port that needed to be forwarded. (I tried 1st external only and it did not work).