72 CHAPTER 9: USING AUTOMATIC IP CONFIGURATION
How Your Switch
Obtains IP
Information
Your Switch has two ways to obtain its IP address information:
■ Automatic IP Configuration (default) — the Switch attempts to
configure itself by communicating with a DHCP server on the
network.
■ Manual IP Configuration — you can manually input the IP
information (IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway).
If you select an option for no IP configuration the Switch will not be
accessible from a remote management workstation on the LAN. In
addition, the Switch will not be able to respond to SNMP requests.
How Automatic IP
Configuration
Works
When your Switch is powered up for the first time the IP configuration
setting is set to auto — this is the default setting.
If your Switch has been powered up before, whichever of the three
options for IP configuration (manual, auto, none) was last
configured is activated when the Switch powers up again.
You can switch to manual IP configuration at any time using a serial port
connection to set up the IP information. For more information see the
Getting Started Guide that accompanies your Switch.
Automatic Process To detect its IP information using the automatic configuration process,
the Switch continually attempt to contact a DHCP server on the network
requesting IP information from the server.
If a DHCP server is on the network and working correctly it responds to
the clients request with an IP address (allocated from a pool of available
addresses) and other parameters such as a subnet mask, default gateway,
lease time, and any other options configured in the DHCP server.
The way a DCHP server responds is dependant on the DHCP server
settings. Therefore the way your DHCP server responds may be different
to the process outlined.
Important
Considerations
This section contains some important points to note when using the
automatic IP configuration feature.
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