Brightbox oddities

I've just set one of these up for neighbour (i.e plugged it in.)

What is going on with the DHCP server on it? It isn't ending the DHCP process properly, and it assigns the IP addresses randomly?

The first client got .66 and then his wireless laptop got .44 - or something like that.

Is this normal? Since when did DHCP servers allocate IP addresses randomly?

Good Q! I noticed that but didn't question it.

What do you mean by "It isn't ending the DHCP process properly"?

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

I've just set one of these up for neighbour (i.e plugged it in.)

What is going on with the DHCP server on it? It isn't ending the DHCP process properly, and it assigns the IP addresses randomly?

The first client got .66 and then his wireless laptop got .44 - or something like that.

Is this normal? Since when did DHCP servers allocate IP addresses randomly?

Yes this is quite normal, which is why I prefer to set up reserved IP addresses for my devices, helps me keep track of any events.

Also if the IP Address (of a wireless priner) keeps on changing it can also present a problem with some wireless printer drivers at the PC end. Reserved IP Address solves this too.

I didn't have time to look further but I noticed clients would stay "acquiring IP address" for a long time/indefinately despite having got the IP address settings. Wild guess the DHCPACK wasn't being sent or something, the process wasn't ending properly and it was being held open. No doubt a network capture would confirm. This is aside from the fact it takes too long to get an IP address, AND it is random, suggests the DHCP implementation is either borked or they let some eejit code it.

In reply to a post by Mike_Williams:

Yes this is quite normal

Normal for the brightbox perhaps!

In reply to a post by Mike_Williams:

Yes this is quite normal, which is why I prefer to set up reserved IP addresses for my devices, helps me keep track of any events.

Also if the IP Address (of a wireless priner) keeps on changing it can also present a problem with some wireless printer drivers at the PC end. Reserved IP Address solves this too.

Sorry, let me clarify.

DHCP servers usually give out IP addresses consecutively, by that it's predictable, range starts at .10, first client gets .10, next client gets .11. This was just giving out any random IP address from the pool.

This is unneccessary for home routers, first one I've come across which does this, and causes great confusion such as when you connect a device to your network.

I agree I was also shocked when i noticed this.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Normal for the brightbox perhaps!

Yeah! My experience of routers may not be wide, but never seen it happening with Netgear, DLink, Siemens & O2 Box. Not what I'd call normal.

DHCP = "Take what you're given". You have no control over the address, which makes life much simpler for the "average" consumer. Unless you're assigning static IP addresses, why does it matter how the DHCP server assigns, and whether or not they are sequential?

That might make it "within spec" but doesn't make it normal, which is the point of this thread.

Post deleted by glossywhite

Edited by glossywhite (Mon 20-Feb-12 22:06:21)

Of course you have control over the addresses, thats what DHCP reservations are for. But like XRaySpeX said, that is kind of beside the point.

There are numerous reasons why a DHCP server should give out addresses sequentially and should attempt to give clients what they have had previously, it prevents clashes, makes things easier to administer and also reduces the CPU usage on the router.

There are reasons why you might not go down the normal route, but not on a home router.

Really, as far as I am concerned, the DHCP implementation on the router is defective, not just due to the randomization but the other problems experienced. You would have thought that orange would test the equipment they supply and someone would have spotted this.

I know this is pedantic but I've wasted so many hours dealing with [censored] routers in the past it just makes me angry that they can't supply something at least half decent. In terms of consumer-range I never have problems with Linksys routers - it would be great if an ISP supplied them.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Of course you have control over the addresses, thats what DHCP reservations are for. But like XRaySpeX said, that is kind of beside the point.

There are numerous reasons why a DHCP server should give out addresses sequentially and should attempt to give clients what they have had previously, it prevents clashes, makes things easier to administer and also reduces the CPU usage on the router.

There are reasons why you might not go down the normal route, but not on a home router.

Really, as far as I am concerned, the DHCP implementation on the router is defective, not just due to the randomization but the other problems experienced. You would have thought that orange would test the equipment they supply and someone would have spotted this.

I know this is pedantic but I've wasted so many hours dealing with [censored] routers in the past it just makes me angry that they can't supply something at least half decent. In terms of consumer-range I never have problems with Linksys routers - it would be great if an ISP supplied them.

Complain to Orange then. Is it worth getting uptight over? You have to realise that you're about 0.1% of the world population who would notice, care about or be affected by such things. Don't forget this is firmware version 1.0 of this router, as far as the public are concerned. Give them a chance.

Post deleted by XRaySpeX

Edited by XRaySpeX (Mon 20-Feb-12 22:17:34)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Then just delete it!

Please be civil. There's no need for being snappy.

Thank you.

It is strange why the box does not assign ip addresses correctly, but its not the end of the world.

In reply to a post by amilod:

It is strange why the box does not assign ip addresses correctly, but its not the end of the world.

Supposedly this is the end of the world... but then again, most of us have a world outside of a router config page, and wouldn't lose sleep over it

PS: Amazing things, firmware upgrades, because even router designers are human.

Edited by glossywhite (Mon 20-Feb-12 22:19:06)

Anyone worth there salt would turn off dhcp, using fixed ip addresses is the only way a network should be controlled.

You may not realise it but Orange does not have a hand in it. They would have commissioned it to be tailored for them from an outside firm and have to accept it warts and all.

In reply to a post by amilod:

Anyone worth there salt would turn off dhcp, using fixed ip addresses is the only way a network should be controlled.

That's what I do. It's pretty obvious eh.

Edited by glossywhite (Mon 20-Feb-12 22:30:27)

Dhcp was designed for home users, so no need to understand how a network works, it's all plug and play that's all a home user needs, no it dept I have ever worked in uses dhcp on there network.

In reply to a post by amilod:

Dhcp was designed for home users, so no need to understand how a network works, it's all plug and play that's all a home user needs, no it dept I have ever worked in uses dhcp on there network.

I agree.

In reply to a post by amilod:

Anyone worth there salt would turn off dhcp, using fixed ip addresses is the only way a network should be controlled.

That is the most stupid thing I've read all week.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

In reply to a post by amilod:

Anyone worth there salt would turn off dhcp, using fixed ip addresses is the only way a network should be controlled.

That is the most stupid thing I've read all week.

That's rude. What you have to remember is that there *is* no one person who is always right or always wrong. We're ALL human, and we all have differing experience and opinions.

Reacting in a gracious, humble way is the key to avoiding conflict. I detect a constant air of underlying resentment and arrogance on TBB, like a gun waiting to go off... on a hair trigger, should someone "dare" to challenge another's viewpoint.

I seem get the feeling that many die hard TBB members are late 30s, possibly even 40-60 years old, and really should know better than to act like squabbling children. I am 36, and I was pretty arrogant yesterday and said sorry for that, as it progresses NOTHING, except resentment and tension. Did I get anywhere by being rude? Of course I didn't, and annoyed many of you.

No one person is "Mr Right", and everyone else "Mr Wrong". Swallow your pride and be good folk. We're ALL sinners in God's eyes, and not one of us perfect.

Thank you for this forum, I love it.

Edited by glossywhite (Tue 21-Feb-12 02:08:10)

In reply to a post by amilod:

Anyone worth there salt would turn off dhcp, using fixed ip addresses is the only way a network should be controlled.

Is it? What could be simpler for a home user with a typical compliment of computers then to let DHCP assign its IPs automatically. No need to bother about ascertaining the various MACs and reserving them, and having to dream up new ones every time someone with smart phone, eReader or other handheld device walks into the house. Why make work for yourself unless you have exceptional requirements for your network?

It's so obvious that the DHCP inventors had to invent it.

So how much salt are you worth, if we are not?

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

In reply to a post by amilod:

Anyone worth there salt would turn off dhcp, using fixed ip addresses is the only way a network should be controlled.

That is the most stupid thing I've read all week.

That�s just what I would have expected to hear from a home user. Ah well it takes all sorts. Bless your cotton socks.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by amilod:

Anyone worth there salt would turn off dhcp, using fixed ip addresses is the only way a network should be controlled.

Is it? What could be simpler for a home user with a typical compliment of computers then to let DHCP assign its IPs automatically. No need to bother about ascertaining the various MACs and reserving them, and having to dream up new ones every time someone with smart phone, eReader or other handheld device walks into the house. Why make work for yourself unless you have exceptional requirements for your network?

It's so obvious that the DHCP inventors had to invent it.

So how much salt are you worth, if we are not?

If I remember correctly you guys were moaning about the dhcp on the box, you appeared to be intelligent folk who knew what they were doing, so it would be obvious to me that you would not use dhcp, and structure your network in such a way that you would know which equipment is on what address.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by amilod:

Anyone worth there salt would turn off dhcp, using fixed ip addresses is the only way a network should be controlled.

Is it? What could be simpler for a home user with a typical compliment of computers then to let DHCP assign its IPs automatically. No need to bother about ascertaining the various MACs and reserving them, and having to dream up new ones every time someone with smart phone, eReader or other handheld device walks into the house. Why make work for yourself unless you have exceptional requirements for your network?

It's so obvious that the DHCP inventors had to invent it.

So how much salt are you worth, if we are not?

I like to take a comprimise approach :-
Reserved IP addresses for PCs and Wireless Printers router assigned IP Addresses for the other devices like "guest PCs", games consoles, smart phone tablets etc.

Reserving IP addresses and setting them up in your hosts file prevents the PC searching the internet for your other devices.

For example one of my (old) XP PCs has the machine name "Athalon" and I share our laser jet printer from this. Before I set up reserved ip address I have seen my wife's vista PC struggling to connect to the shared printer, doing a tracert shown that it is trying to reach a machine with an ip address outside our network (i.e. on the internet).

You might argue that it's my non-unique name which is making the problem worse, but how many PCs are there out there which have been set up by the Windoww 7 networking wizard where the first user is "John" and the machine name is "John-PC". If John want to share his printer there is a strong chance that other family members PCs are going to reach out to the internet when printing, especially if John's PC happens to be off at the time of printing.

In reply to a post by Mike_Williams:

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by amilod:

Anyone worth there salt would turn off dhcp, using fixed ip addresses is the only way a network should be controlled.

Is it? What could be simpler for a home user with a typical compliment of computers then to let DHCP assign its IPs automatically. No need to bother about ascertaining the various MACs and reserving them, and having to dream up new ones every time someone with smart phone, eReader or other handheld device walks into the house. Why make work for yourself unless you have exceptional requirements for your network?

It's so obvious that the DHCP inventors had to invent it.

So how much salt are you worth, if we are not?

I like to take a comprimise approach :-
Reserved IP addresses for PCs and Wireless Printers router assigned IP Addresses for the other devices like "guest PCs", games consoles, smart phone tablets etc.

Reserving IP addresses and setting them up in your hosts file prevents the PC searching the internet for your other devices.

For example one of my (old) XP PCs has the machine name "Athalon" and I share our laser jet printer from this. Before I set up reserved ip address I have seen my wife's vista PC struggling to connect to the shared printer, doing a tracert shown that it is trying to reach a machine with an ip address outside our network (i.e. on the internet).

You might argue that it's my non-unique name which is making the problem worse, but how many PCs are there out there which have been set up by the Windoww 7 networking wizard where the first user is "John" and the machine name is "John-PC". If John want to share his printer there is a strong chance that other family members PCs are going to reach out to the internet when printing, especially if John's PC happens to be off at the time of printing.

I always find that manually configuring the pc to print to the shared printer located on another pc to be the best option.
I always tell my business customers not to scrimp on a printer if it is to be used by more than one PC, always buy a network printer, this will stop any problems from occurring. Especially if you are trying to print from a 64bit win 7 pc to a 32 bit XP machine/printer.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

So how much salt are you worth, if we are not?

He/she is just trolling, anyone with any grain of common sense, let alone experience administering networks of more than 10 computers, let alone 1000, knows that you don't go round configuring all those clients with static IP addresses and assocuated settings, nor expect guests with non-managed devices to crack open TCP/IP settings, check with the network administrator for a free IP, and enter that in. Completely putting aside the fact DHCP is required for other important network services to be able to function properly.

Edited by Pipexer (Tue 21-Feb-12 18:17:59)

I don't see how this could be, because if you are in a workgroup and are connecting to "John-PC" then this is single label name and windows will use NetBIOS (broadcast) or LLMNR to resolve the hostname. This would not go out through the default gateway. Also, the Windows Firewall would not be configured to allow file and print sharing out of the local subnet.

Edited by Pipexer (Tue 21-Feb-12 18:27:11)

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

I don't see how this could be, because if you are in a workgroup and are connecting to "John-PC" then this is single label name and windows will use NetBIOS (broadcast) or LLMNR to resolve the hostname. This would not go out through the default gateway. Also, the Windows Firewall would not be configured to allow file and print sharing out of the local subnet.

Really, im sure you know what you are talking about when it comes to DHCP, NOT.

I run a network with 2753 pieces of equipment, ranging from ip phones, PC's, Scanners, Industrial Network equipment, VPN's, Virtual Gateways and servers, every piece of equipment on that network has a static ip address, trust me i know what im talking about.

Now dont get me wrong DHCP is fine in the home, but not on a large industrial scale, Look at any server farm, oh lets let DHCP manage it, you NOOB.

Hi. New to this forum and looking for some advice on connecting a printer as a network printer to my new brightbox. Up until 10 days ago had a livebox which allowed my Lexmark laser printer to network via USB perfectly, both to a XP desktop (hard wired to box) and laptop (WIN7) on wireless.
Now with brightbox, connected via USB it will not work. Have gone through the setup numeours times, deleted and reinstalled over and over, both via desktop and laptop. Windows recognises the printer and puts drivers in and adds to available printers. So all looks well, but go to print, document goes to printer queue and you can see it as "printing" in the status window, but after 30 secs fails "error". Orange provide no guidance for brightbox to conenct a printer, so only going by old livebox instructions. COnnected to port "192.168.1.1." as a Standard TCP/IP port. Have called Orange and they are adament the brightbox should work and just fob me off with it being a printer manufacturer issue. Any ideas ?

In reply to a post by hammster:

Hi. New to this forum and looking for some advice on connecting a printer as a network printer to my new brightbox. Up until 10 days ago had a livebox which allowed my Lexmark laser printer to network via USB perfectly, both to a XP desktop (hard wired to box) and laptop (WIN7) on wireless.
Now with brightbox, connected via USB it will not work. Have gone through the setup numeours times, deleted and reinstalled over and over, both via desktop and laptop. Windows recognises the printer and puts drivers in and adds to available printers. So all looks well, but go to print, document goes to printer queue and you can see it as "printing" in the status window, but after 30 secs fails "error". Orange provide no guidance for brightbox to conenct a printer, so only going by old livebox instructions. COnnected to port "192.168.1.1." as a Standard TCP/IP port. Have called Orange and they are adament the brightbox should work and just fob me off with it being a printer manufacturer issue. Any ideas ?

Nowhere in the manual does it state that this feature exists, and they'd shout it LOUD if it did. Ergo, I'd say the feature is missing (in fact I tried it here, and no printer was detected).

Give up on it, and save sanity. The feature doesn't seem to be there.

Take care

This site is for home users. So it's a waste of breath generalising, as you've been doing, a rule that applies on your "large industrial scale", even if it were true, to the home.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

This site is for home users. So it's a waste of breath generalising, as you've been doing, a rule that applies on your "large industrial scale", even if it were true, to the home.

???

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

I don't see how this could be, because if you are in a workgroup and are connecting to "John-PC" then this is single label name and windows will use NetBIOS (broadcast) or LLMNR to resolve the hostname. This would not go out through the default gateway. Also, the Windows Firewall would not be configured to allow file and print sharing out of the local subnet.

I don't know how or why, but I definately saw it, doing a tracert from Janet-PC tring to find John-PC (which had only just booted up) definately showed external internet address.
I can't re-create the steps on my vista laptop, maybe it was yonks ago when I was using two XP machines.

Whenever I switch on my wireless Vista laptop I get loads (32 this time) of these in the log over the 1st few minutes:

Sun Feb 26 21:36:29 2012 Possible DoS attack detected from 192.168.1.163(MAC Addy)
....
Sun Feb 26 21:28:37 2012 Possible DoS attack detected from 192.168.1.163(MAC Addy)

Doesn't happen when I turn on my wired XP Desktop.

Any ideas why?

No idea why it's doing that - I'd suggest it's clearly a false positive in the first instance, as we have seen the box doesn't seem to have recieved much testing so it's possible the Vista machine is doing something which it thinks is a DoS attack - my neighbour appears to have a Vista laptop so i'll check when I'm next round there - wouldn't surprise me if it was happening there too.

I got my brightbox today and connected a portable hd into the usb port.

My old pc and my son's laptop (both running windows 7 32 bit) read the usb hd fine and can access all files. My computer, which is running windows 7 64bit, can not.

I have not changed any of the modem setting, but in network settings on the 2 working pc's the brightbox is listed as a computer and is accessable, and it's also listed at the bottom under network infrastructure. It's only listed under infrastructure on my pc.

Is the usb port on the brightbox not 64 bit compatable or should i be changing some setting?

Thanks in advance
tractor

Never mind I solved the problem by mapping it as a separate drive using \\BRIGHTBOX\Portable HD (setting taken from my working pc).

Its now listed in 'My Computer' as Z: