Address reservation and dhcp server blues
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Hello All,
I recently purchased an Archer BE550 to alleviate the issue that I was having with the Nighthawk XR500 where if it got rebooted, my wifi wouldn't come back on for hours, no matter what I did.
At any rate. I got this router and set it up and network and wifi comes right up so that's a win for that.
Except. I'm not sure I'm understanding how reservation and dhcp works in this tplink router because I setup some address reservations and I'm having those same reserved IP's conflict with other devices. I found out by 1) having wifi devices go offline and not reconnect again and 2) by going into the DHCP server address reservation and seeing that those same devices, their names were changed to other device names.
In the XR500 I could setup the DHCP IP address pool to 192.168.1.50 to 192.168.1.254 leaving the first 48 (.2 to .49) address for address reservation OUTSIDE of the DHCP range.
On the Archer, if I set it up as such, then I can not reserve an address lower than .50. It tells me to ENTER AN IP ADDRESS WITHIN THE IP ADDRESS POOL. But, when I do so, the router assigns those reserved IP addresses to other devices.
I went back to making the address pool as such anyway: 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.254 allowing me to reserve addresses in the lower range. But this is creating IP address conflicts.The DHCP is not supposed to give the Reserved addresses to any other devices but the ones.with the matching MAC Addresses, but in my case, all of the reserved IP's have different device names. And those same devices are the ones that won't connect to the wifi.
Is there something I'm missing here? And yes. Every time I reserved an address, I rebooted the router but it's still creating IP address conflicts
Thanks in advance
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Welp, I haven't received any response since posting the photo. At this point I've moved on to call it buggy software not knowing anything else. Buggy softare when it comes to the device names changing, not debating whether it's right or wrong to have your DHCP reservation in our outside of the range because if you read the post here:
(3) Should DHCP reservations be created inside or outside the pool? : networking (reddit.com)
there are a few ways of slicing a cake apparently so I won't sweat it.
Since then, I've done what others have done. It's a pain (not really) but when I set reservations under .50 I changed the pool to include those low numbers then change the pool back up to .50 and above.
I obviously was having trouble having my reservations inside the DHCP range. Since, having them outside, I haven't had issues of having devices going offline and not connecting.
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Hello, thank you very much for posting on TP-Link Community.
It is normal that the reserved IP address needs to be within the DHCP range, but the router should not assign those reserved IP address to other client devices.
Could you please let us know your network topology, share with us screenshots of your DHCP Client list and also DHCP address reservation list?
By the way, please ensure your client devices are not using random MAC address.
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Thanks for replying.
I have my new BE550 as my router DHCP server with 2 XR500 AP's throughout the property.
Most of my devices are comprised of IOT devices and of course my main Desktop and phones.
On my desktop, I've always set my own Static IP address as well as on the 2 AP's and the network printer. On those devices, the Mac addresses are fixed. Same devices that are having IP conflicts.
I've read dozens of this issue online in the last few hours and from what I've gathered, the fact that the reserved IP addresses need to be within the DHCP range is something that varies from old software vs new software and manufacturer dependent. Based on my readings, I will say that for reservations to be within the DHCP range is a relative statement again depending on software and manufacturer.
I used to run a WRT** based Linksys router for the longest time, years ago and you could reserve IP addresses outside of the DHCP range. The XR500 by Negear that I just scrapped could do this as well. I could see why allowing reservations outside of the DHCP range (still within the subnet) would avoid IP conflicts. Just makes sense in my head. I never had IP conflicts previously until now.
I guess, this is new to me. I've always set my reservations outside of the DHCP range.
So, I have to adjust to this new way for me if I choose to keep this router which I like how fast it comes online vs the XR500 dog. Just have to figure out how to fix this from ocurring on my static IP devices.
From reading other info line, someone had some suggestions but don't know exactly how this would those devices with static IP addresses:
Suggestion #1: Fix the issue at hand so no IP addresses conflict, this meaning if there is a setup error. Fair enough. I'm not an expert, just a Power User.
Suggestion #2: Assign DHCP range from .50 to 254. Assign static IP addresses below .50 on the devices without address reservation. I just don't know how this would even function. Given that the static IP addresses are still valid within the subnet, will these statically assigned devices behave normally? communicate?
As far as photos, I'd have to submit them once I get home later today.
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I have used reserved address in both Asus and TP Link within the DHCP range and have not had any issues. The auto assigned address are both lower and higher than the reserved addresses.
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As an update. Those devices that were conflicting with my Reservation list I disabled and rebooted.
They did come back Fine but...
After some time went by I noticed that the names in the Reserved IP list got changed randomly to other IOT devices and even my TV got the IP address of 1 of my access points.
So this, is musical IP addressing here.
I believe this address reservation is a crapshoot and it isn't working right in this router. Very disappointing.
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Here is a snapshot of some clients with the 4 reserved IP addresses.
Interesting thing here is that in the IP Address reservation section, my printer is reserved to 192.168.1.11 address and I had seen the actual name of the printer and the name stuck for a few days till today. Today, the name changed to Zfold4
If we move down to the DHCP Client list, you can see my phone as zfold4 with its actual mac address and that is the actual MAC address as I verified it.
So, the question is. Actually i have a few:
a) How the heck does this actually work? The device names keep on swapping up in the address reservation list. The other device names did too.
b) Do the names mean anything even if they're getting automatically changed? I can see that my zfold4 device does have the right MAC address attached to a DHCP address of .121, even though up in the Address reservation section the Zfold4 device name is attached to the printer with a .11 address.
I did connect to printer and it prints fine and so does phone.
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Welp, I haven't received any response since posting the photo. At this point I've moved on to call it buggy software not knowing anything else. Buggy softare when it comes to the device names changing, not debating whether it's right or wrong to have your DHCP reservation in our outside of the range because if you read the post here:
(3) Should DHCP reservations be created inside or outside the pool? : networking (reddit.com)
there are a few ways of slicing a cake apparently so I won't sweat it.
Since then, I've done what others have done. It's a pain (not really) but when I set reservations under .50 I changed the pool to include those low numbers then change the pool back up to .50 and above.
I obviously was having trouble having my reservations inside the DHCP range. Since, having them outside, I haven't had issues of having devices going offline and not connecting.
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Hi, thank you very much for the update.
Actually we didn't see any photos from your previous replies, let me confirm the situations, when the reserved IP address is within DHCP range, some client devices will change its name automatically but MAC address don't change, and there are IP address conflicts which causes some devices disconnecting from the network.
While, if you set up address reservation within DHCP range first, then change the DHCP range upper than the reserved IP addresses, all the issues disappeared, am I correct?
If that is the case, it is quite strange, and I will report to the related engineer for further testing.
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Hello there.
I did have a photo posted up there for about 5 days but I did remove it after 5 days.
The issue is as you stated.
When I reserved address within the DHCP range, I would see the "Device Name" field change the name to another random device, while the MAC address stayed the same. I mean, it is perplexingly confusing to see the Device name field inside the Reservation window change names to another random device while the mac address and ip address stayed the same. At some point I thought, that since, some of the devices connect to one of the AP's which have a reserved IP address, that it just shows you what devices are connected to that AP, being that the AP has a reserved IP. For example: I would see some IOT devices names on the "Device name" field that I specifically reserved for one of my AP's. This doesn't even make sense to me either but that's, what I thought was happening.
Those same devices would disconnect randomly.
Since, then, I have left my reserved IP addresses outside of the DHCP range. I've had no disconnects since. Obviously, not designed this way as it tells me to assign IP's within the DHCP range but I have to do 2 operations for this to happen. Change the DHCP range to include my lower IP's, Reserve, then, change the DHCP back to .50 to .254
I have not had disconnects. The Device names are still changing visually in the Address Reservation box but no disconnects. It's just weird.
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