D-Link DNS323 (DNS 323)

Disclaimer: These pages are provided 'as is' without any liability or any kind, if you decide to follow these steps it is your responsibility.

DHCP addresses and static IP addresses

If you have a router that connects you to the internet via a cable modem or high-speed connection on a telephone line (ADSL) then you will need to tell your router NOT to use the static IP address that you gave to the DNS323.

Let's go back a step and look at the reason in more detail.

Here's a typical home or small office network

A modem connects to the internet connection and in turn to a router that enables a number of computers to share the connection.

What happens is that the router allows connection to be shared by giving each computer on the network a specific identity, as each computer asks for information from the internet the router tags the outgoing requests so that when the answer comes back it knows which computer asked for that particular information.

The technical details

Small local networks like this use IP addresses exactly the same way as the internet in general, but they are always in a special range, that is 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255. That allows over 65000 computers on the local network which most people don't need, but the range is there if needed.

Usually the router is set up so that it uses a small range, something like 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.110 just 10 addresses, certain addresses are reserved. As devices as attached to the network or turned on they 'ask' the router for an available IP address and receive one of the available addresses. They keep that address until they are removed from the network or a time limit expires, after which they just ask for another address. That means that each time computers are turned on they will get different addresses.

Take this example . . .

The network is running, but no computers are switched on. Computer 1 is turned on, asks for an IP address and receives 192.169.0.100. Computer 2 is turned on and gets IP 192.168.0.101. Now the DNS323 is turned on and wants 192.168.0.100 but it can't get it because that IP address is already in use. So what you need to do is assign the static IP address for the DNS323 above the range that is used by the router, say 192.168.0.255, or change the range that the router uses so that it excludes the static address used by the DNS323.

In our scenario we assigned the D-Link Network Attached Storage DNS323 a static IP address of 192.168.0.100, note that is the first address of the range used by the router. What we need to do is tell the router to use only addresses above 192.168.0.100.

How to set your router to use different IP addresses on its network

This example uses a Dlink DI-524 wireless router, details for other routers will be different, but should follow these guidelines.

Never access your router over a wireless connection - always use a wire.

Log into the router as administrator, usually you can do this with any browser by going to the specific address 192.168.0.1 - see screenshot

Enter your username and password for the router

The part we need to change is the DHCP - click that button on the left.

Change the Starting IP Address to 101, that leaves 100 free for the DNS323.

Then click the Apply button, this will cause the range to be stored and the DI-524 will restart.

That's all, from now on the DI-524 will only give out addresses in the range 192.168.0.101 to 192.168.0.110 so switching the DNS323 on and off will not matter.

The same procedure can be used to assign fixed IP addresses to any network device.