Forming a small network at home (PART III)

In this part of the article we will discuss how the computers in your network need to be configured if your DSL router is acting as a DHCP server.

Your DSL router acting as a DHCP server
Some of you might be using internet through a DSL service at your local area. For the most of you, the DSL connection might be configured for a single computer at your home. In such a case your computer is most probably configured with manual settings for internet and would not cater to any more computers if you wished to add any.

If your DSL router was configured as a DHCP server, then your network will become much more scalable. You can add as many computers to your network as your network switch allows, without the hassle of configuring the new computer each time it is added. For example, whenever I want to bring my work notebook on my home network all I have to do is plug-in the LAN cable into my notebook, and the DSL router automatically assigns the network configuration to my notebook. This way, I do not have the hassle of entering the configuration into my notebook everytime I need to connect it to my home network.

As every DSL router/modem has a different interface for configuration, we won't go into the detail of configuring the DSL routers/modems. You can, however, request your Internet Service Provider to make this configuration for you.

Setup your computer as a DHCP client
For your computer to accept the network configuration automatically from the DHCP server, you need to make it a DHCP client. A DHCP client is simply a computer that accepts network configuration from a DHCP server. To make your computer a DHCP client, do the following:

1. Go to Start > Settings > Network Connections,




2. Right-click 'Local Area Network' and click on 'Properties',




3. In the dialog window that opens, double-click 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)', as shown below:
   
   
   
   
   
4. Now, in the dialog window select 'Obtain an IP address automatically' and 'Obtain DNS server address automatically' radio buttons, as shown below:
   
   
   
   
5. Click OK on all open dialog windows.

These steps essentially set your computer to accept settings automatically from a DHCP server. Now, no matter which network you plug-in your computer, if it has a DHCP server on it, your computer will be automatically assigned network configuration to communicate over that network.