Self Assigned Ip Address

[smogsy]

Its Strange Problem, this problem only ever happens on the Mac Systems in the house,

Current Systems: Win7 PC, Imac, Macbook, Ipod,Linux Server

Both issues can be fixed with a Reboot to the Mac or the Router & happens both on Wifi & Ethernet.

Example scenarios:
Dad could be surfing the internet on my Macbook sometimes if i turn my Win7 PC on it kicks him off, and gains the same IP 192.168.0.3.

Other:
Internet works fine at 2am go to bed turn on the Imac the next day & i get a self assigned IP Address,

this also happens on my ipod.

I Don't think its the router as i've seen it a few routers that i had.

Personally i think its a OSX Bug. where it doesn't release its IP address & renew it correctly.

What do you think?

 

[tersono]

No, it's not an OS X bug - it's a DHCP weirdness that occurs with certain combinations of router / ethernet / wLAN chipsets and is independant of the OS.

The simple solution is to set static IPs for each piece of hardware.

 

[VideoFreek]

I agree with tersono--OS X releases/renews IP addresses just fine. That's not it.

Some things to check:

Any chance you have more than one DHCP server operating on your network? The router and the Linux server, for example?

You mention a specific IP address (192.168.0.3) that always boots your Mac off the network. Any chance that one of your clients (the Win7 PC for instance) has a fixed IP address within the scope of the DHCP server?

Tersono's approach (setting up fixed IP addresses) will certainly work well in a brute force kind of way. Another approach, if your Linux server can be set up as a DHCP server, would be to shut off DHCP on your router, if possible, and set up the Linux box to hand out addresses. Of course, only do this if the Linux box is always on.