I have a fondness for wired connections whenever possible. I think it makes a network faster, and more secure. Additionally there are almost always one or more dead spots in a home. This can be easily and cheaply resolved at work, but I am not sure how a home net-worker would take it.
I also prefer static IP addresses to any variety of DHCP, although it is desirable to keep a 20-30 node range for DHCP, to allow testing and rapid installation of a system. Of course I have quite a few embedded systems all over the house, and they perform a variety of chores which are often dependent upon values obtained from another box in the house. Internal DNS resolution and or direct IP addressing can help make sure that communications between PCs are rock solid. Original MAC-IDs are reputed to be world unique, but almost all cards and routers provide mechanisms for spoofing MAC-IDs. I understand there are ways of testing to see if the MAC-ID is original, but avoiding being dependent on MAC-IDs would seem to make the system safer, and less likely to corruption. Of course every-bodies situation is different. Wiring ethernet cables may not be feasible. You may have landlord problems, or physical difficulties. I live in my own house, and have access to almost all of the first floor from the basement, and have wiring to the important parts of the second floor. And I have a lot of embedded computers like Pi's, UDOO's, PCDuino's and more because I like to play with them, and the data they capture. Best wishes, Michael On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Bob Proulx <b...@proulx.com> wrote: > Brian Flaherty wrote: > > Like many, I have a laptop that I use in multiple settings: > > - home wired > > - home wireless > > - work wired > > - work wireless > > - roaming around (hotels, coffee shops, airports etc.) > > Me too. > > > Right now, I used wicd, but I get different IPs at home whether I'm on > wired > > or wireless. > > Each interface will have a different and unique ethernet MAC address. > The DHCP server will see each of those interfaces as a different > identity based upon the different ethernet address. This is as per > standard practice for dhcp servers. This is why your different > interfaces are getting different IP address assignments. And if you > had both wired and wifi connected at the same time with the same > ethernet address it would cause routing confusion. So this is all > good and by design. > > > I'd like to set a static wired IP at home, but use dhcp wired > > at work. > > > What do others do now with these sort of use patterns? Is whereami what I > > should learn to use? All the files refer to old kernels, APM, etc. Does > it > > matter that it is not new? > > As others have suggested you should instruct your dhcp server to > allocate the desired address. Keep your interface using dhcp both > places. At your home configure a static address for that dhcp > ethernet address. Different dhcp servers call it different things. > Some home routers call it a dhcp reservation. Others call it > different things. But they should all have a way to configure that a > particular ethernet address is always allocated the same IP address. > > If you do that then you will always get the same IP address at home > and will get a dynamic address at work and other places. Easy. > > If you want the same IP address on both wifi and wired that is a > little more interesting because they will have different ethernet > addresses. If you promise not to connect both of them at the same > time then I would set the same ethernet address on both of them. I > didn't test this so no guarantee but I think it would be worth a try > to try this: > > $ cat /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/set-ethernet-mac-address > #!/bin/sh > address=so:me:ad:dr:es:sh:ere > ip link set $IFACE up address $address > > That will set the ethernet address when the device comes up. If you > set the same ethernet address for both eth0 and wlan0 then both of > those should negotiate the same address from your home router. > > Note again that I didn't test the above so beware of problems that I > didn't anticipate. > > > I found this page about netscheme.py: > > > > http://www.shallowsky.com/linux/networkSchemes.html > > > > I have to type with this one, whereas whereami sounds like it works in > the > > background. > > > > I did also page through many months of debian-laptop, looking for threads > > about this, but nothing jumped out at me. > > There are many different strategies all quite different all with the > same goal. > > What I do is I set up OpenVPN on my laptop. On the VPN network I > assign a static IP address. My laptop always has a static address on > my VPN network and therefore the dynamically assigned IP address no > longer matters to me. My router is also a Debian system and both it > and my mobile devices can easily run OpenVPN. > > Bob >
