ubuntu 7.10 install

[Evan Leibovitch]

chris-n/jUll39koHNgV/OU4+dkA at public.gmane.org wrote:
> I'm going to re-install ubuntu. I've so thoroughly pooched my system
> that a re-install is needed. For instance I can't even get into the
> system as regular user. The worst is having to use webmail (instead of
> thunderbird) for troubleshooting help.
> Before I get started I thought I'd clear up something. When
> configuring IP address should I choose dhcp, static or what? I have
> cable Internet access. I just want to make sure that other computers
> in our home will be able to print across the network to the printer
> attached to this machine. Also, I use scp across the network for
> backups. I've made this more complicated in the past than it should be
> so I thought I'd ask before I do this. I've cosen dhcp in the past
> thiking that means I'm saying yes to my isp assigning me an ip address
> via dhcp. Apparently that is not how it works. The isp only gives an
> ip address to my router and then the router gives me a local address?
> If so, what do I answer when asked about things-network while
> installing ubuntu?
You have it generally right.

Most routers used in this situation have their own DHCP server. It
fetches a single IP from the service provider (which it uses to
communicate between your router and the outside world), and then its
DHCP server doles out local, private IP addresses within your home or
office network. You would then just set up your Ubuntu system (and
everything else on the local network) to use DHCP to get an address from
the router.

Usually in such setups, routers default to one of the IP address ranges
reserved for private use (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_network ) -- something like
192.168.2.XXX -- though most routers allow you to change that if you
wish. Your computer never sees the IP address given to the router by
your ISP, that is handled by the router through a technique called NAT
or "IP Masquerading" (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation). All your
computer knows is that communications outside your own network need to
go through the router.

The important thing is that all the computers on your home network
should be doing the same thing ... either they should *all* be fetching
their IP addresses from the router's DHCP server, or you should manually
set everything's static IP. Otherwise the systems on your network may
have problems talking to each other.

HTH,

- Evan
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