Static and Dynamic IP addressing

Setting up static IP addressing for your home LAN network, ensures each device and PC on the network has a unique IP with which to connect to the routers Lan. This ensures you always know whose who on your network and prevents the router assigning duplicate IPs to different devices.

The first place to start is looking at your routers Lan setup information. In my case its Sky’s DG834GT router incorporating an adsl modem. In the routers admin area determine the IP address (192.168.0.1) and the subnet mask (255.255.255.0). Also the Starting and ending IP address (192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.254). For each Device or PC on your network you need to assign it a unique IP within the Starting and ending IP address range. For example if you have three PC’s on your network assign them 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.4.

To assign a fixed IP’s to a PC go to your control panel and select network connections. Within this highlight Local area connection, right mouse click and select its properties. Then select Internet protocol TCP/IP. Then properties. Enter the settings in the picture to assign a static IP 192.168.0.5

Restart you PC and repeat for other devices on your network but with a different IP

Most internet providers issue dynamic IP addresses to each client/user. Thus each time you switch your ADSL modem off, it will reboot with a new IP address to the outside world. This presents the problem, that to access your PC or NAS server remotely, requires the new IP address to be known and entered. This is a headache for those with NAS servers, who want to FTP or HTTP into it when its connected the other side of their ADSL modem.

To get over this you can register your IP with a free database, which will assign a domain name to it. Hence you only need to remember the assigned domain name rather than the changing assigned IP. Obviously the assigned IP to the domain in the database will require updating when its changed but their help at hand here too.

To set this up, you firstly need to find out what your current assigned IP is, using www.whatismyipaddress.com/. Then register and set up a dynamic DNS service with DynDNS at www.dyndns.com/. During this process you will enter your current IP and choose a domain name. i.e. mydomain.homedns.org.

Next the dynamic IP information must be entered into the router. My setup is a QNAP NAS TS-101 Server via a Netgear DG834GT and Sky ISP. The router setup page is entered by typing into your browser http://192.168.0.1 then admin/sky at the login panel. In the router setup page, select Advanced/Dynamic DNS. Within this page it lists the approved DynDNS provider. Enter your DynDNS domain name, and its user name and password. Finally enable it.

Once set up, typing in http://mydomain.homedns.org will take you to your network (remember typing this in only works from remote PCs). Now you are left only with the issue that when youre assigned IP changes (by turning off your modem) you need to update the database records at www.dyndns.com/. Well this can be done with a handy utility at www.dyndns.com/support/clients. Install this and let it run on your PC. Walla all you need to remember to access your devices remotely is http://mydomain.homedns.org

QNAP Nas server

The QNAP NAS TS-101 network attached storage device costs about £150. Additionally it requires a hard drive. I fitted a Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 400GB SATA2 costing £55. Specifications for the NAS TS-101 can be found at qnap.com.tw.

The unit is well made in brushed black aluminum with indicators on the front. It’s thermally cooled with just the hard drive noise to prevent it from being totally silent. In the setup the hard drive has a sleep mode, making the unit totally silent with minimal power usage.

I plugged the TS-101 NAS unit into a spare port on my Netgear DG834GT router/ADSL modem. The DG834GT has an Xbox 360 and two other computers on its other ports. Ultimately your speed on the home LAN will be limited to 100mbps via the DG834GT router. When transferring large files between the NAS and PCs this is a bit slow. An improvement is to get a 1000mbp network switch. That way high speeds are maintained between the devices. Each device was set up with a static IP. The TS-101 was assigned an IP of 192.168.0.3

The TS-101 NAS was initially set up using the CD it comes with. This got it up and running, but I personally still found it a bit daunting. Hence I systematically worked my way through setting up each individual function over the course of a few days.

The NAS hard disk is initially divided up into a number of sections Public, Qweb, Qusb, Qdownload, Qmultimedia. Access to these sections is by either a user group or registered individual. (read or read/write). Additional sections can be added. For example I created a Private area for myself. Users can be added and assigned to User groups which can also be added to. Hence each user is assigned to a user group and then either a user group or individual user, is given rights to a section. I broke mine down into User groups : Administrator/Home/Everyone/Friends. Then I assigned users to the groups, and finally users or groups access rights to sections.

Remote access to the NAS server is done using the IP address of your router. The easiest way to get this is by looking at whatismyipaddress.com. Initially this takes you to a default menu page where once logged in access to web based functions and administration are allowed. To assign a fixed domain name to your ISPs assigned dynamic IP see my article entitled Dynamic to static IP from your ISP provider

The default TS-101 menu page allows password access to administration functions and four sub menus.
1. Web file manager for management of individual files on the server
2. Web server accessing your TS-101 hosted web pages.
3. Multimedia station web accessed picture and music viewer.
4. Download station for setting up unattended downloads.

FTP Setup
To allow remote access to the TS-101 behind the router you have to open up ports on the Netgear DG834GT. This is done in the admin panel of the DG834GT. In the admin panel select Security/Services. Then enter three entries. One for FTP on port 21, one for HTTP on port 80 and finally port 6000 for admin access. These are the default ports for the TS-101 but can be changed. Then select TCP/UDP for each. Next under Security/Firewall rules add three inbound entries (one for each). Also I added some outbound entries, although I don’t think they are required. See image. Remote FTP access to the TS-101 drive sections can then be achieved using an FTP client and the IP assigned to your router from your ISP provider.

WEB SERVER
The web server function is activated via the menu Administration/network settings/web server. Once activated your TS-101 default menu page is replaced by your uploaded HTML page. The original admin page can still be accessed via IP 192.168.0.3:6000. I created a link on my new home page to the admin page. Web page files can be uploaded using your FTP client or directly. This works well. Although I wouldn’t recommend hosting large busy sites.

BACKUP UTILITY
On the supplied CD is a Backup program called NetBak. Once installed onto any network PC it allows you to backup either immediately or scheduled any drive or folder contents of that PC to the TS-101. Its straight forward to use. Restore is also provided to retrieve your files or whole disk backup.

DOWNLOAD STATION
The download station is accessed via the admin area of the TS-101 or via the web accessed TS-101 default menu. Its built into the firmware, and allows unattended downloads of torrent tasks and FTP downloads. These are dropped into the Qdownload area. Its functional but limited to the above two methods.

OTHER
Your printer once plugged into the TS-101 becomes networked. Mine was automatically recognized and works flawlessly out of the box. NAS server failures can be set up to remotely email you. 

The QNAP NAS TS-101 is a perfect companion for the XBOX 360. I moved all my photos, Music and videos (inc HD WMV) across to the Qmultimedia section of the NAS drive. Then the Squeezebox UPNP media server firmware of the TS-101 was activated. This is located in the menu Administration/network settings/multimedia station. Click to activate, and leave the squeezebox at its default settings. At the xbox end go into the Media tab, select Music / Source : Computer and the Twonky media server.

 I did find that the preinstalled Squeezebox V4.2Q firmware would not allow access to my videos. This was corrected by downloading and installing the Latest TS-101 firmware 2.1.0 which incorporates Squeezebox version 4.3. Now the wife can access it all easily and with no PCs on. Performance on this is instantaneous as quick as you hit the button its there. On port 9000.