Do it Yourself: [DIY] Static IP's

03 July 2014

[DIY] Static IP's

I'm a consummate DIY'er. Its gotten to the point if I can't do it, it
won't get done, good or bad. Not a topic we come up with often here but
its obviously DIY.
This isn't to denigrate AT&T, just to share what I figured out. I took
me three weeks of tinkering with failure to finally figure it out. There
were a few forums that hinted towards this but this is the way I did it.
3 years ago, my DSL was provided by Pacific Bell. I had 5 static DSL
IP's I could play with it anyway I wanted, with some exception I'm sure.
Most DSL or Cable modems are Dynamic IP's and can change from time to
time. This doesn't work well when you run a server. You need a static IP
that doesn't change that matches the URL you pay for.
Pacbell's setup used a DSL modem with a phone line in one port and a WAN
port in the other. You had to provide your own router and deal with the
WAN IP's however you chose. It worked fairly simply, I got it to work so
it couldn't have been all that difficult to deal with.
Uverse came along with much faster access speeds and TV/phone/Internet
deals that were better than elsewhere. So I asked for 5 static IP's like
I had with Pacbell. I didn't know what they offered, I don't think they
knew either. They said sure, I went for the package and then they told
me there was only one static IP. Good enough for me. I run a server and
needed the static for the servers URL. Turns out Uverse bought out
Pacbell, at least in this area.
Then recently I have trouble with the router they provided. The service
tech tells me about the 5 IP's I have. No one in the three years I've
had this has been able to tell me I had what I asked for and I've asked
several times. I try to tell them that I didn't have 5 IP's and that was
what was probably wrong. I lost internet service, it had happened
before. Someone set something wrong in the home office, I was sure and
my internet went down along with TV.
Technical support came out, replaced my router, then had to do it again
3 weeks later. But they fixed the disconnect problem, it was a bad wire
in the wall. So instead of complain I tried to get the static IP's to
work. In Pacbell's system I had to provide my own routers or configure
my servers to run as routers with elaborate firewalls to detect all the
hacks you get when exposed to the full internet. I learned then that you
had to keep the public networks separate by hubs or switches from the
private ones that hide behind your router(s). In Uverse's static IP's
they provide a router, not a modem. So there is a built in firewall and
unexplained systems that are weird in the extreme. I asked for help but
hit a wall when I asked.
All I found online for help to deal with the routers they provide is no
explanations or help from Uverse. So I went back to what I learned
previously. Public and private have to be kept separate.
I don't know if there are any other networkers out there in this group
that have tried to deal with this.
I got it to work. If you have had this problem. Ask me. I know the
solution. The router they gave me is a NVG589. The old one was a 2wire.
I didn't experiment with the 2wire, it failed before I could play with it.
The trick is you have to create a new subnet for your personal network
and let Uverse have their default 192.168.1.0/24. The NVG589 uses DHCP
for identifying your network interfaces. If you have more than one
network interface connected from one machine to Uverse's DHCP server it
will confuse the Mac Addresses of the 2 network interfaces and mess your
network up to the extreme. I always setup my server with one public IP
and one private so I can service it securely from the private side. The
way you get one of your static IP's they assign is by DHCP. You first
have to get it assigned a private 192.168.1.0/24 IP, identified by the
network interfaces Mac Address. When you have both interfaces assigned
by DHCP the router can't tell which is which on the same subnet. The
difference here is that the system is dependent on DHCP. You can't
assign static public IP's. It doesn't work that way on this system.
What I did was assign the network interface I wanted for private as for
192.168.2.0/24 with a free static IP on that subnet. The other network
interface I set to use DHCP. When the server booted up, the DHCP server
didn't see the private card and the one I wanted for public got assigned
an available private IP on 192.168.1.0/24. There is a section on the
router where you assign the public static IP's. When you separate the
interfaces like this the router will correctly assign the public static
IP and it will work when you get it all tuned right. You have to
reassign the DHCP'd interface with one of the static public IP's in
another section of the routers page. When its done on different subnets
it works.
Just thought I'd share this, I can't be the only one that had to figure
it out or give up trying. I almost canceled the 5 IP's.
There are a few setting in this particular router that need to be set.
Each CAT5 port on the router can be isolated, unlike typical routers,
hubs or switches. This will make them public or private but its not
documented. All the public static IP's need to be on separated ports
from the private.
Hope I didn't get overly complicated. Those that haven't dealt with
networking issues will wonder what the hell I'm referring to. I hope
there's one or two that were as baffled as I was. I just doggedly kept
after it until it worked. I figured it had to work. It just wasn't easy
figuring it out. Luckily I had the time to work it out.

Steve in California