DHCP and DNS how does it work?

[sharkmont]

My inquiries are regarding network setup and how the DHCP server works. I did a little reading via Google but it was a little too technical for me to fully digest.

1. When a computer accesses a web-site say http://www.youtube.com does the request travel like this: [PC]==>[HDA]==>[Router]==>{{Internet}} ?
   
   • Would the following response return as follows: {{Internet}}==>[Router]==>[HDA]==>[PC] ?
     
     1. Does this mean that the HDA is a potential bottleneck for people accessing the internet?
     2. Does this also mean that the HDA should be connected to one of the first four ports on my WRT54g router?
2. Does the following topology require alteration: (it is my current setup)

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   Cable Modem ┌──┐ │◦ │ WRT54-G 5-port Switch 5-port Switch │⌂ │ _________╔═══════════╗________╔════════════╗_________ │⌂ │ [«»|«»«»«»«»] [«»«»«»«»«»] [«»«»«»«»«»] │ │ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ └║─┘ ║ ║ ║ ╚══PC3 ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ╚═UNUSED ╚════════╝ ║ ║ PC4╝ ║ ╚PC5 *HDA*╝ ║ ╚═XBOX360 WAN ║ ╚═══PC2 ╚══XBOX ¯¯¯¯¯ ╚═PC6 PC1
   1. When the router DHCP server is turned off and Amahi box is DHCP server my Xbox will not get an IP address (00.00.00.00), but other computers receive IP addresses only it is a much longer process to receive the address.
   
3. Are there any other folks running their routers with DHCP addressing on and having success. I believe I heard something about limited or no access to the http://hda/ and http://torrents/ page. I guess my main question is how can I get the dhcp server on my Amahi box to reliably give out IPs to all machines be they gaming devices, cell-reception boosting devices, or just computers. Sorry for my long-winded first post.

I appreciate any input on the broad range of questions I posed. Thank you again for providing such a great service and keep up the work!

[cpg]

i don't have time to answer your questions at this moment, however this will give you some idea of the tradeoffs:

http://www.amahi.org/faq#how-do-i-set-u ... this-works

[cpg]

1. Does this mean that the HDA is a potential bottleneck for people accessing the internet?
2. Does this also mean that the HDA should be connected to one of the first four ports on my WRT54g router?

[/list]

no. traffic does not go through your HDA. only the query for the DNS goes to your HDA initially. the HDA is as caching server, so, for repeated requests (a very common case), it's faster than going to the ISP for queries.

[*]Does the following topology require alteration: (it is my current setup)

looks good. and the pic looks great!

1. When the router DHCP server is turned off and Amahi box is DHCP server my Xbox will not get an IP address (00.00.00.00), but other computers receive IP addresses only it is a much longer process to receive the address.

that sounds odd. unless you changed the out of the box configuration, there should not be any issues.

first make sure your hda can ping yahoo.com, amahi.org, etc.

[*]Are there any other folks running their routers with DHCP addressing on and having success. I believe I heard something about limited or no access to the http://hda/ and http://torrents/ page. I guess my main question is how can I get the dhcp server on my Amahi box to reliably give out IPs to all machines be they gaming devices, cell-reception boosting devices, or just computers. Sorry for my long-winded first post. [/list]

we have thousands and thousands of machine hours of HDAs in the community. it's built for reliability and to work 24x7.

let's focus on how to troubleshoot your HDA.

it it possible that there is a conflict?

say, that your HDA is set up in DHCP range (100 and above) and there is a conflict?