Wake-on-lan issues, XP Pro, Dell Dimension 2350..

[just4747]

Like I said above, it's a Linksys wireless router (a Wireless-G, WR-series), but for the exact model number I have to wait till I get home to check.
Thanks so far, I am really anxious to get this working!

If you could answer all of the following to help me understand these final things for now, I would appreciate it greatly:

I get the differences in IP addresses just fine- the ones like 192.168.1.101 are private IPs that are used between my router and a single computer, and the 76.23.227.252 one is my public IP that is used to communicate with the a actual internet, which is different for every single network device out there (unlike the private IPs which can be the same on one person's computer as another person's, since it is only within that home network).

And when opening a port in the router, you are telling anything that is sent to that public IP/port combination to go to the private IP address within your network that you entered in the port forwarding settings. And in the case of WOL, the data gets sent to a specific network card/PC according to the MAC address used when sending the magic packet.

I mean that's all correct, right?

Then what was the point of me setting up my public address 76.23.227.252 to be also named just4747.dyndns.org and inputting that into my Linksys router's DDNS settings? I know that creating a hostname for your public IP is so that you can use that hostname and it will "always have the most recent IP address behind it." But doesn't the public IP 76.23.227.252 always stay the same anyway?? Like we just said, it's the private, internal IPs that change right?

AND

When looking at how I have a desktop (wired) and a laptop (wireless) on the same network, it makes sense that I have ONE public IP address (76.23.227.252) from my router to the internet (will always be that same number from any machine on my network) and therefore both machines show that same public IP. BUT each of those machines have their own individual private IP within my network, i.e. 192.168.1.101, 192.168.1.102, etc..

That explains all of those different kinds of IPs but then what is the IP that logs me into my router settings (right now it is 192.168.1.1)? Is that the one IP address of the router device itself? Does that one change (shouldn't, right?)?

 

[kmote]

The IP of your router will not change (it will be set in the routers set up pages, on my linksys it is in the basic setup section). Your public IP is dynamic also you would know if you had a static public IP as you would most likely be paying extra for it.

 

[just4747]

The IP of your router will not change (it will be set in the routers set up pages, on my linksys it is in the basic setup section). Your public IP is dynamic also you would know if you had a static public IP as you would most likely be paying extra for it.

So you're saying that the reason for the Dyndns.com hostname that I made is so that if/when the 76.23.227.252 public address changes, it will keep up with the new one? I haven't noticed it changing ever lately..

And the "reserving LAN IPs" that Tkey referred to is so that the individual PC's private IP doesn't change? So in both cases, the point is to combat either the changing (dynamic) private or public address?

 

[Yek]

Sure is, if you've entered the dns info into your router it will hopefully keep up with dynamic changes provided you keep logged into the service.

I personally use a DUC (Dynamic Update Client) to keep up with my ip changes. (A small app that sits and watches for ip changes, reporting them back to the online service)

IP reservation will, indeed, stop changes interanally.

Do you need any help with setting these things up?

Cheers,

~ Tkey

 

[kmote]

I havn't personally used dyndns (or any similar service) but yes that seems to be the jist of it. You set it up in your router and each time your ISP gives you a new public IP your router informs the dyndns service so that the service can keep track of your latest IP. You might not have noticed it change because it stays the same for some time and when it changes it is usually only slightly different.
The reserving of your internal IPs has nothing to do with your public IP, one of the beauties of the system. The way I usually do it is to set the range of addresses assigned by DHCP and whatever servers I need to keep static IPs I just statically assign them outside this range.

 

[Yek]

... but you need a static internal ip for your box so the router knows where to send the packets

Tkey

 

[kmote]

I assume he has done that already hasn't he?

 

[just4747]

I understand all that now. So I have static-ized (haha) my public IP with Dyndns and my router's DDNS service, but I have not yet made my private IP static on either computer. I see a few places in the router settings where you might do this, but can you guide me through very quickly? Thanks! And my router is a Linksys WRT54GX.

So I tried making my PC's private IP static in the Network connections>Local Area Connection>Properties>TCP/IP Properties menu. I changed "Obtain IP automatically" to "Use the following" and entered:

IP Address: 192.168.1.100
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Default GW: 192.168.1.1

And "Use the following DNS server addresses" (I wasn't sure on this):

Preferred DNS Server: 192.168.1.1
Alternate DNS Server: 76.23.227.252

Then I went in the router settings and turned off DHCP Server and entered that same info under static IP. My network then got so screwed up and I could not connect to the internet or the router from either machine. I had to wire directly into the router and try resetting the settings and the router itself several times until I was able to get all the IP settings back to auto/default. So I guess I am back at the beginning of this, could you guys help me make my private IP for this machine static?

I'm guessing maybe I wasn't supposed to change the router settings to equal the same?

I've tried just about everything now. I even got rid of my wireless router and put a netgear switch in place and hooked the internet and both machines up to it..tried waking the PC from the laptop over the switch using MAC/IP and it just never works. Why does this have to be so ridiculously difficult???

 

[Yek]

Becuase it's a home network and dosn't have proper switches or static IP's I guess...
Personally i'm a NETGEAR bloke, there'e pretty easy to configure (advanced settings) and I don;t have much experience with your particular router model.

I did however find the following ref which may make some sense to you
Setting Up Static IP WRT54G V6 - Wireless Routers - Linksys Community Forums

Cheers,

~ Tkey

 

[just4747]

Okay that's pretty much what I've done for static private IPs on both machines. I filled both out making the desktop 192.168.1.100 and the laptop 192.168.1.101. I just wasn't sure about the preferred and alternate DNS entry though..I put in the router IP and my network's public IP (not sure why). What should be there?

Since it seems I now have static public and private IPs, I guess I can go back to trying the WOL. I figured trying the simple netgear switch would be good just to test the PCs WOL ability since every forums' advice tells people to try simply booting from within the network over LAN and everyone always says "works like a charm." But not for me of course...
It's hard for me to test booting from outside my network at all though since all I have is the one network and none of me neighbors WiFis are decrypted to get on real quick. I have been going to this mobile version of a WOL website on my Blackberry that actually lets you enter MAC and IP and it tries to send the packets over the internet from there. But it hasn't worked yet.

What else can I mess with to try this?? Thanks so much so far guys..
If you want me to take screenshots of my ipconfig screen, my router settings, my LAN settings screen, my Bios, my network adapter settings, anything that will help...just let me know! I will do anything to get this to work.