“I need to assign my printer a static IP address outside the range of my DHCP”
To some of you that may sound like Greek, or at least extreme Geek.
However, you will need to know how to do this when adding hardware, such as a printer, to your network. The following should give you enough information to add the printer, or to know that your network is not set up this way and you need help.
Scenerio: You want to add a printer to your patron network, so that patrons on your public access computers can print. You have a separate router for your public access computers, and your public access computers use dynamic IP addresses, that is, addresses inside the range of your DHCP.
1. You have, of course, been keeping wonderful records of your network, and you know the administrative login to your router…so now, log onto your router. This is typically done by opening a web browser such as Internet Explorer (IE) and typing the IP address of your router.
2. But wait…you don’t know the IP address of your router! Then go to a PC you know is using the router (in this scenario, a public access computer) and run “ipconfig /all”
Here are the steps if you don’t remember:
a. Click “Start” (in the lower left corner on your PC desktop)
b. Click “run”
c. Type “cmd” then press <retn>
d. In the window that pops up, type “ipconfig /all” then press <retn>
e. The “Gateway” is your router IP address.
f. Let’s assume the gateway is 192.168.1.1, just type “192.168.1.1” into you web browser, then login!
g. Add this IP address to you network records!
3. BTW – if your router password are still “admin”, change the password once you get logged in, and put the new password in a very safe place (like with all your network documentation, under lock and key.)
4. Now that you are logged into your router, look for the words “DHCP Server”. Typically this information is on the first page. You will likely see something like this:
This screen tells us that DHCP is enabled, and the DHCP range is 192.168.1.100 thru 192.168.1.149.
5. So what addresses are outside the range?
192.168.1.2 thru 192.168.1.99
and
192.168.1.150 thru 192.168.1.254
***IP addresses cannot end in 0, 1, or 255, as these are reserved.
6. Log out of the router – we just went there to check on the DHCP range.
7. Now you need to go into the set up for your printer and set the static IP address. When configuring an address for the printer, the IP configuration would look like:
IP Address – 192.168.1.2
Subnet Mask – 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway – 192.168.1.1
***This configuration needs to be entered in the printer, not in the router (see the owners manual or vendor for steps on configuring the printer TCP/IP information).
8. If you have another device on your network that will be assigned a static IP address, you would use:
IP Address – 192.168.1.3
Subnet Mask – 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway – 192.168.1.1
For any other devices, just increment the IP address by one, 192.168.1.4, 192.168.1.5, etc. and always use the same Subnet Mask and Default Gateway. In other words, it will help to keep good records so you know which static IP addresses have been used for what.