Fixed IP (DHCP Reservations) For Control4

[penn65000]

27 minutes ago, lippavisual said:

Because when a router fails, and they do fail, system stops working.  Between shitty provided power supplies and post-Covid manufacturing, everything is a ticking time bomb.

Then you get panic calls.  Guess what, can’t login remotely because the router failed.  Now a truck rolls.  Time and money is why I and Rav above, do what we do.

Same can be said why would you install a backup power generator?  My power never goes out!!

If you use dchp you just plug in new router. If you assign IPs then you have to reprogram new router. So why again do you use static ips?

[penn65000]

10 minutes ago, zaphod said:

It doesn't happen often, but I have had issues.  Like my Roku TV gets assigned a new IP and it is controlled by C4 using IP control.  The same thing has happened to few other devices.

Prob once/year or less (once every other year) i have to reboot the ruckus epic 5. But v rare. 

[RAV]

1 hour ago, zaphod said:

This is really smart, I use something similar, but not exact.  But I run into problems at times when I need more than ten numbers for a block.  What do you do for larger homes where there are more than 10 rooms?  I could see that easily happening in large modern homes.  I think I have more than 10 rooms with audio or video endpoints.  Do you go to a /23 subnet?

Surveillance gets a Vlan. Audio sources down to 20s. Video sources to 220s. C4 encroaches up into the 90s.

[Amr]

I hate VLANs! Never understood it in a home network setup, firewall helps me more. My DHCP server is taken care off by my NAS not router.

[lippavisual]

14 hours ago, Haze said:

If you use dchp you just plug in new router. If you assign IPs then you have to reprogram new router. So why again do you use static ips?

If the router failed, you’ll be configuring a new router anyways.  Not really a difference to setup the router with the same subnet that was used vs. setting up a dhcp server.

The difference is, while your router is not in place, your control system devices will still function and chug along.  That will not happen if everything relies on a dhcp server.

Most people don’t have an extra router lying around to get them by.

[lippavisual]

14 hours ago, ajd123 said:

So back to my last question, should the IP address’s be set to static from wothin the device AND should those devices also have a fixed DHCP address setup from within the router?
 

Typically, if you’re statically assigning IP’s, you want them to be outside your DHCP scope.

[ajd123]

21 minutes ago, lippavisual said:

Typically, if you’re statically assigning IP’s, you want them to be outside your DHCP scope.

Gotcha.  If you did not do it this way, you would end up with IP conflicts which is what I was trying to figure out.

[dinom]

I personally think you guys are making this harder than it needs to be.

[msgreenf]

9 minutes ago, dinom said:

I personally think you guys are making this harder than it needs to be.

B-I-N-G-O

[zaphod]

1 hour ago, lippavisual said:

Typically, if you’re statically assigning IP’s, you want them to be outside your DHCP scope.

I think you can also generally do DHCP reservations outside of your DHCP scope as well.  So you could use 192.169.1.100-199 for your DHCP scope, but then assign a DHCP res with an address of 192.168.1.210

[Cyknight]

Man that's all a lot of chit-chat.

DHCP reservation (and what unifi stupidly calls fixed IP) is better than leaving it up to the server (and at times needed for IP control, though less and less so). True static has advantages, but only if the network is well managed (ISP or user putting a new router in means likely completely dead system as the range is different for MANY systems out there). IF managed properly, static is best.

Static and if the router allows (and if it doesn't you need a different router) reserved DHCP should ALWAYS be done outside the regular DHCP range. And the regular DHCP range doesn't need to be 200 addresses. Oh and DHCP lease should be limted in time, especially if you're doing static IPs.

When doing static IPs it's wise to ALSO put a reservation in for the device MAC and ip address, as it means you have a list in your router, and it helps prevent ip conflicts.

 

STOP assigning needless device reservations: you're blocking off space without any need. Laptops, phones, even game systems really don't need reservations, with certain exceptions (ie when work VPN or port configuration is needed, but that's pretty rare these days). Neither do any (other) devices that you aren't controlling over the network (ie if your smart TV, AppleTV, blueray player is being controlled IR, there's ZERO reason to reserve an IP).

 

VLANs are NOT a requirement for Control4 - that said there are certain use cases in an overall system where a VLAN (or an NVR supplied subnet) is recommended. Cameras mean exposed network locations on the exterior of your house. This isn't likely a major concern for most, but when you're a banker working from home, a high access employee of a tech firm or government or someone else more likely 'targeted' for access it is simply a smart choice to not leave that network location open to 'easy' access (mac filtered ports on a switch is an alternate, though mac spoofing is nothing there days).

 

'Course there's always exceptional cases out there, we're talking fairly general scope here.