Smc Webt-g

[_John_]

Hello,

I've got a small office that I installed an SMCWEBT-G into. It's been up and running just fine, as far as access goes, for about a month or more. It's plugged into an SMC 4 port switch, which in turn is plugged into the uplink port of a 24 port Netgear switch.

What we noticed yesteday, when the administrator of the Linux server was in, is that it's hammering away at the DHCP server every second or so to obtain an address.

Seems the AP asks for an address, the server gives it an address, and the AP refuses the address, etc, etc.

We changed the AP default of 192.168.2.25 to 192.168.99.185

Does anyone know why this device would be asking for an address? The AP is configured with only one Mac address allowed, and WPA with a passphrase. The laptop hasn't been in the building for a couple of weeks at least.

It is using the current firmware version of 1.03.

I've dropped a line to SMC, but haven't heard back, and I'm not sure I will.

TIA
John

[M/Q]

The fastest method to get to the bottom of it would be to put the AP and computer on a hub then to the switch and run a packet sniffer like Ethereal to see what is going on.

Are the DHCP server and AP on the same subnet? What is the subnet mask you are using as that was quite a move for an IP addr?

[_John_]

The DHCP server and the AP are on the same subnet, 192.168.99.xxx

The subnet mask stayed the same for the AP, 255.255.255.0

When the laptop is in the building, it obtains an IP address just fine.

One thing I've just noticed with all this typing is that when I assigned it 192.168.99.185, it probably should have been something less than 100, rather than 185. The DHCP server assigns IP addresses starting at 100.

I'm not knowledgable enough with this stuff to determine whether that would be a problem, but I certainly have enough knowledge to get myself in trouble now and again. ;-)

[M/Q]

Typically you are correct and assign static IP addrs so that they are out of the range of the DHCP scope. But the DHCP server is smart enough to realize that IP addr is taken and will not give it out. Depending on the DHCP server you can go into the scope configuration and say that the assigned IP addr is reserved and un-useable.

Again the only way you are really going to tell if there is some sort of issue is to sniff the packets during the DHCP handshake.