Technical Guide | HelixNet IP Network Guidance Page 10
Unmanaged
Ethernet
Switch
Since unmanaged Ethernet switches do not allow user manage port speeds, it is best to
use a 100Mb switch. An unmanaged Ethernet switch can connect to a managed switch,
but the port that is physically connected to the HelixNet device or endpoint must be
100Mb full duplex.
Hubs
Hubs should not be used with HelixNet. A Hub’s all port transmission will crash the
HelixNet Network.
Connecting
HelixNet to
Your
Network
Integrating HelixNet into your network may need an IP addressing scheme defined with
the help of your IT department. We recommend using a STATIC IP address for the
HelixNet Main Station then leaving all other HelixNet devices on DHCP. However, there
are a few scenarios where DHCP may not be desirable.
- In a large HelixNet systems with roughly 30 HRMs, 10 HKBs and 10 beltpacks, a
DHCP server may not assign addresses to devices fast enough for a network this
size. In this case, it is better to utilize static IPs for each device.
- When a port on a Cisco switch starts up, there is a Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
exchange before IP traffic starts flowing properly. This exchange can take up to
a minute to complete. In this situation HelixNet devices configured for DHCP
addressing will often timeout before receiving its initial IP address. They will
retry and get a proper IP address a minute later, but our recommendation in this
case is to either use static IP addresses or enabling PortFast on Cisco switches
port.
If no DHCP server is found, the Main Station and all other HelixNet devices will revert to
an unused link-local address in the 169.254.0.0/16 block - devices on this subnet block
will then be discovered by the Main Station. If neither of these options are used, the
Networking menu on the device allows you to disable DHCP and set static IP addresses.
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