I have a computer at home that connects to the internet through a linksys router, and I have it setup so that I can remote desktop to access my home PC from my work PC (it already works, port forwarded, firewall off)

my problem though, is that sometimes when i'm at work and need to remote desktop, it'll randomly not work. and when i get home and check the settings, i'll find that my router has reassigned a different local IP to my home PC.
to clearify: i would find my home PC's local IP to be say, 192.168.1.100, so i would forward the propure port on the router to 192.168.1.100. and then out of nowhere, the router will change it to like 192.168.1.102 and thus my port forwarding won't work anymore, remote desktop stops working.

is there anyway to have my local IP set so it'll never change?

If you are allowing DHCP on the router you may need to change things over to a static IP scheme.....

Keep the old stuff running

...through your ISP from dynamic IP. (static is more expensive than dynamic FYI)

i_Xp/VistaUser

Local IPS allocated via DHCP by a router have nothing to do with your ISP.

Check your Linksys Manual. There should be something there that allows you to permanently reserve an IP address for a particular computer once it has been forwarded to a server. Older models might not have the facility.

Failing that a static IP address outside of the DHCP scope is the only answer.

Stuart

thanks for the replies
i look up on the IP reserve thing
i have a linksys WRT54G-CA, and i believe it should be able to reserve an Lan IP address to a specific PC by matching the MAC address, which would be pretty nice
i wonder if anyone knows how to do it in settings though?

Some routers allow DHCP reservations via the machines MAC address. Just set a static IP on your home machine.

Like Stuart said, make sure the static address is outside your DHCP scope.

"Computer security." — Oxymoron

setting a static IP :

start - control panel - network connections - right click active network connection - properties - scroll in window to internet protocol tcp/ip - click to highlight then - properties - check use the following ip - enter IP required - tab once to enter subnet mask - enter default gateway (Linksys default is 192.168.1.1) - linksys default DHCP range will prolly start at .2 and end around .115 so you might be best setting a high IP like .253. set your DNS to be the same as your default gateway. then apply and close. RDC is a difficult thing to secure well - are you sure you want to use that? Does the router have any VPN facility?

-D-

nosey aren't ya, readin me sig?

I have the same setup as you. Here's what I did.

I set my linksys router IP to be 192.168.2.1. It then set the network to be 192.168.2.x. On my PC, I have it a static IP of 192.168.2.114. This is done in the properties of Network Connections, then Properties of your Local Area Connection, then properties of TCP/IP.

Then I go to the advanced routing and look for a forwarding tab. I Forward port 3389 to the static IP of my PC.

OK, but what if your ISP changes your IP address? How do you prevent that. Well, sometimes you can't control what the ISP does. However, most DHCP servers will keep the MAC address of a client computer in its memory for a set amount of time. I then went to the Clone MAC tab and entered in the MAC address of my static computer's Network Card. That, in effect, gives me the same IP, even if my cablemodem resets.

If your ISP is hard headed, and doesn't like that, you can install a Dynamic DNS proxy program, such as DYNDNS on your PC, and instead of connecting to your IP address, you could connect to the DNS name you setup.

John Carr
Network Analyst