IP addresses for embedded device with ethernet

In a Windows network without a router (they still exist), DHCP may not be available. Nearly all of these can be handled using a protocol named APIPA, which used to be documented at least on the MSDN site. It's been a while, but AFAIR it doesn't help with naing problems.

Stephen

APIPA constrains the choice of IP addresses available to your device *and* the other devices on your subnet. I.e. *this* device "wags the dog".

--don

I think the solution depends on your target network. If your embedded server device will only work on one flavor, say winxp or Linux you can use their default capabilities.

When I did the Kitty USB analyzer I wanted universal access. Anything with a browser should be able to access it. This eliminates special dhcp hooks or network clients that try to find a server. Servers are special and need to be found by many different clients/browsers on many different operating systems.

The only universal way with an ip server is to have a fixed IP address. All other "finding" techniques will fail if the actual network or clients differs from yours. So I copied what Linksys routers and HP printers do as servers on an arbitrary network.

This does mean that a network administrator (AKA home user) has to change the IP address from the default to work on his network. But it means multiple devices can be on the same network and coexist happily. It is a shame that there is no universal server finding technique, but the original arpanet had everyone with a fixed IP and passed around a hosts.allow file with everyone on the arpanet named. This technique worked for awhile, but is not scalable and of course windows is not compatible with it! There is no "x" in my email address.

Steve Calfee wrote: ...

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I am not recommending it's use but Windows does still support a host file.

In Win2K it is in C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

kevin