[Gllug] Best practice: Server IPaddr allocation

[DL Neil]

Learning Linux. Asking for advice:-

As is the way with life we have been gradually increasing the number  
of PCs/servers on our LAN and adding extra components such as a  
Freecom FSG-3 "Storage Gateway" which apparently will run a simple  
LAMP stack, email server, file services, media server(?),... as well  
as the usual routing, DHCP, and DNS facilities of such an appliance.  
It has been running happily for a little while but I've been taking  
some time today (Friday, yeah!) to rationalise the home/office network  
by making it start to sing for its supper.

Instead of the more usual Bind/named and dhcpd, it uses dnsmasq to  
accomplish both DHCP and DNS in one. Whilst the software is small, it  
is not so frequently published on the web.

Previously I manually edited the hosts files on each of our machines,  
but this has become more of an effort as the number of machines (and  
Apache VHosts) has multiplied. So my first job was to point each  
client computer to the FSG's DNS server and clear-out the various  
clients' hosts files. Done. Great!

Guest machines (eg paying customers) have always been client-only and  
thus configure with dynamic IP address allocation from the DHCP  
server. However most of our own machines act as both client and  
server, eg desktop or development and run Apache (etc), and thus have  
been given a static IP address on the LAN.

As well as the traditional two allocation methods mentioned (static  
and dynamic - the only ones that I've come across to-date = mea  
culpa!?) Dnsmasq offers an additional config option, eg:
dhcp-host=11:22:33:44:55:66,192.168.0.60

This always allocates a 'constant' (if not "static") IP address to the  
host with the stated MAC address. The host thus being defined as a  
dynamic DHCP client but allocated an address on the LAN sub-net  
although outside the DHCP 'dynamic pool'.

In the same way that I have 'exported' name resolution from the  
individual PCs' hosts files to the 'DNS server', would it be 'best  
practice' to centralise the allocation of static addresses at the  
'DHCP server'? Why (not)?

Regards,
=dn

PS for those who actually understand/like such detail:

dnsmasq is available from http://thekelleys.org.uk/

Details of the Freecom FSG-3 "Storage Gateway" can be found at  
http://freecom.com/product.asp?CatID=8070
(don't confuse Freecom (?Dutch company) with the multinational  
networking company whose similar-sounding name begins with the digit 3!)

When it boots, the appliance puts out the following identifications to  
its log:
Linux version 2.4.27-uc1 (root at lindev) (gcc version 3.3.2) #1612 Fr  
Jun 9 13:10:52 CEST 2006
BusyBox v1.00 (2006.01.05-16:28+0000)
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039


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