Windoze laptop address allocation :-(

[Ben Scott]

On 5/31/07, Steven W. Orr <steveo at syslang.net> wrote:
> ... winblose laptop ...

  What flavor of Windows?  2000?  XP Pro?  XP Home?  Something Vista?
Something Older?

  If you're not sure, click Start, then Run, type "WINVER", and click
"OK".  That should open a window which tells you the flavor of Windows
you're running.  (It will also report a specific version, build
number, and Service Pack, but that's unimportant for present
purposes.)

> ... which when used at home will be NATing out through my server.

  In general, this is very possible.  From your description, I take it
you've already got the server configured to do the NAT for your
private LAN, and you just need to know how to manage configuring the
laptop for the LAN, right?

> Any computers I have in house are running linux and all have static addresses
> assigned.

  Does that mean you have no DHCP service on the LAN?  (You can do
static addressing with DHCP.)  If so, I would suggest adding a DHCP
server to the LAN.  For a laptop -- which is presumably going to be
traveling between multiple LANs -- this will make things much easier.
(I'd also argue it makes things easier in general, but that's another
topic.)

  Setting up DHCP is reasonably easy.  I assume the DHCP server will
be your Linux server.  You've got a couple choices for DHCP software.
For a small LAN like that, dnsmasq might be appropriate.  It's an
integrated DHCP/DNS daemon.  It uses /etc/hosts and /etc/ethers for
configuration, can handle static and dynamic addresses, and creates
DNS names for all the LAN computers.

http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/doc.html

  You could also use ISC dhcpd, which is the reference implementation
of DHCP, and very popular on *nix.  It's probably overkill for such a
small network, though.

  Yell if you need help with either one.  (Be sure to mention
distribution and release.)

  If you insist on manual IP configuration of the Windows laptop, you
may end up doing a lot of fiddling as you move from LAN to LAN.
Windows XP does have a feature called "Alternate Configuration" which
may help you here.  This basically lets you configure 'doze to use
DHCP when available, but to fall back to a manual IP config if it
cannot obtain a DHCP lease.

  To get to the Windows XP network config UI, do: Start -> Control
Panel -> Network Connections.  Find the LAN adapter's icon,
right-click it, and pick Properties from the menu.  In the list of
network components bound to that adapter, pick "Internet Protocol" and
click the Properties button.  Then click the "Alternate Configuration"
tab.

-- Ben