User's Manual

EnRoute50x/51x User’s Guide

TR0153 Rev. D2

10 Client DHCP Configuration

Two configuration options exists for assigning IP addresses to client devices using DHCP:

Each EnRoute500 hosts a local DHCP server and supplies IP addresses to devices

attaching to any of the client interfaces

A centralized DHCP server supplies IP addresses to client devices, with the EnRoute500s

relaying DHCP messages between client devices and the centralized server.

All client interfaces in a mesh cluster must use the same DHCP mode or have DHCP disabled.

10.1 Using Local DHCP Servers

The EnRoute500 can be set to serve IP addresses to clients on enabled access point

interfaces and the Ethernet interface on repeater nodes using DHCP. The DHCP role

parameters in the „wlanN‟ and „eth0‟ interfaces control DHCP behavior. When the role is set to

„server‟, the EnRoute500 will respond to DHCP requests received from client devices

connected to the interface.

The IP addresses provided by the DHCP server will be in the subnet defined by the LAN prefix

(„sys.id.lanprefix‟), mesh ID („sys.id.mesh‟), node ID („sys.id.node‟) and the IP address range

start address and size parameters in the appropriate client interface („<intf>.ip.start.actual‟ and

„<intf>.ip.size.actual‟). For example, for the „wlan1‟ interface, the start and end of the address

range are:

Start address = <LAN prefix>.

<Mesh ID>.

<Node ID>.

<wlan1 IP address range start address> + 1

End address = <LAN prefix>.

<Mesh ID>.

<Node ID>.

< wlan1 IP address range start address > -

< wlan1 IP address range size > - 2

The EnRoute500 can be configured to set aside a number of IP addresses for client devices

that will use a static IP address. These IP addresses are taken from the pool that DHCP

assigns IP addresses from. Thus, increasing the number of IP addresses set aside for

devices with static IP addresses will reduce the size of the DHCP address pool. The DHCP

reserve parameter controls the number of IP addresses that will be reserved for static use. By

default, this parameter is set to zero, assigning the maximum possible number of IP