ADSL questions

**airhead** · 01-24-2003, 10:23 PM

I'm looking at getting ADSL because dialup is starting to drive me crazy now. I've heard that your ip changes every few days. Can someone enlighten me on what happens here? I'm guessing you get cut off and have to reconnect? Does that screw up downloads and things like that?

Also, does anyone have any solutions for automatically reconnecting? I've seen a cron script that reconnects, but I'm guessing you have to wait a minute for cron to run the script?

Thanks

**Kernel_Killer** · 01-24-2003, 11:56 PM

Your IP shouldn't change unless you disconnect. Just like a dial-up connection. As for keeping it alive, any PPPoE dialer should have the option to keep it alive. The only thing a changed IP will mess up, is if you have a FTP/HTTP, or and server that has a dedicated IP in the config. Nothing DYNDNS can't fix. :P

**airhead** · 01-25-2003, 01:51 AM

Thanks. I had a long talk to Lovechild and he helped me clear up most of the questions I had

**Schotty** · 01-25-2003, 06:26 PM

Some DSL is dynamic and uses DHCP. DHCP has a lease time, that can range from hours to ... well years if the admin so deems it be. So as long as your lease time is the norm (3 days or so around here) and you have activity where the connection isn't dropped or reset by you, your IP can be the same for a LONG time.

**Compunuts** · 02-04-2003, 07:28 AM

I don't know about ADSL guys but my cable connection IP was changed only once when @Home go bye-bye and ATT took over. That only time was because the big cable that goes through our block was cut in construction and I was out of service for two days.

But ATTBI still says we have dynamic IP and they hold the rights to change it anytime they want ( but that doesn't mean they will change it through ).

CP · 02-04-2003, 09:00 AM

We had DHCP setup for our university network, and I found that every time I rebooted I had the same IP. I would shut down and not use my PC all weekend then on monday same IP. I have no idea why it worked like that.

**10Dedfish** · 02-04-2003, 09:57 AM

You can still have the same IP address if you disconnect or dont access your computer over a couple of days because they have DHCP configured that way.
Whenever you log onto a DHCP network you effectively establish a lease on an IP. Who ever configures the DHCP server can setup how long that lease last before it has to be renewed. If you stay connected to the network then your lease will stay current.

10Ded

**Compunuts** · 02-05-2003, 06:02 AM

It also depends on how the DHCP server is configured. Some admins will force expire your lease and some will put it longer time ( to reduce the load of DHCP server ).