[Techtalk] serverless IP assignment?

[Malcolm]

On Monday 11 February 2002 04:32 pm,  Raven, corporate courtesan wrote:

> 	Are the externals of the systems all the same?  

Yes.

> And do you
> control the IP space, or are you having to customize it to use addresses
> out of some block that the customer owns?

I have control over the IP space (it's set up on one of the "internal use 
only" IP ranges).

> 	If you can somehow differentiate the externals of the boxes,

Not an option.

> this may not be an option for you.  Of the IP space that you're using
> addresses from, are there other customer boxes already up in this space,
> or is it only conflicts with your own boxes that you have to worry
> about?

There is a potential for one non-our box existing on the network. It's IP is 
known before hand however so we can avoid that IP. 

> > Basically I have no control over the actual environment. The boxes are
> > shipped to the locations and installed by the end users. There are
> > essentially no techs on location. The users may add or remove boxes at
> > random, or not turn one on, etc.

> 	Is there any (logical to your product) reason why they would do
> this, or is it just "users will be users, and break any system in
> inventive ways without ever reading the docs"?

There is logical for product reason for people to add new boxes, remove ones 
that break, move them around the phyisical network (or between locations 
owned by them). Having them forget to turn a machine on, or only run part of 
their network at some times, is also likely.

> > I don't. As far as I know, you can ping with a conflicting IP (you'll
> > just get packets meant for other people too).

> 	And sometimes (depending on network topology and what your
> switches are) you won't get any pings back.  

Topology is basically everyone on the same subnet. No routers or anything to 
worry about. Sometimes the boxes may be run as standalone machines (no 
network at all).

> Even possibly booting with
> a duplicate IP is a bad idea -- some switches will turn off both ports,
> and neither box will have connectivity.  

Not a problem as there's no switches involved.

> It will usually work, but is sub-optimal design.  

I know, which is why I'm looking for a better solution.

> work".  Is it too much to hope that you can put in the SLA for your
> product, "You must have X free IP addresses for us to use to use our
> product.  You must tell us what they are."?  

Free IPs are not the problem (see above).

> I don't know how much control you have over the actual hardware design.

None basically. Half the systems concerned are legacy systems, so even if I 
did, I have no ability to retrofit hardware on those already in the field.


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