ZyXEL Communications P-870HW-51A V2, User Manual

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Chapter 6 LAN Setup
P-870HW-51a v2 User’s Guide
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Subnet Mask
The subnet mask specifies the network number portion of an IP address. Your ZyXEL Device
will compute the subnet mask automatically based on the IP address that you entered. You
don't need to change the subnet mask computed by the ZyXEL Device unless you are
instructed to do otherwise.
DHCP
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) allows clients to obtain TCP/IP configuration
at start-up from a server. This ZyXEL Device has a built-in DHCP server capability that
assigns IP addresses and DNS servers to systems that support DHCP client capability.
RIP
RIP (Routing Information Protocol) allows a router to exchange routing information with
other routers.
Multicast and IGMP
Traditionally, IP packets are transmitted in one of either two ways - Unicast (1 sender - 1
recipient) or Broadcast (1 sender - everybody on the network). Multicast delivers IP packets to
a group of hosts on the network - not everybody and not just 1.
IGMP (Internet Group Multicast Protocol) is a network-layer protocol used to establish
membership in a Multicast group - it is not used to carry user data. There are two versions 1
and 2. IGMP version 2 is an improvement over version 1 but IGMP version 1 is still in wide
use.
DNS
DNS (Domain Name System) maps a domain name to its corresponding IP address and vice
versa. The DNS server is extremely important because without it, you must know the IP
address of a computer before you can access it. The DNS server addresses you enter when you
set up DHCP are passed to the client machines along with the assigned IP address and subnet
mask.
6.3 Before You Begin
Find out the MAC addresses of your network devices if you intend to add them to the DHCP
Client List screen.
6.4 The LAN IP Screen
Click Network > LAN to open the IP screen. See Section 6.7 on page 72 for background
information. Use this screen to set the Local Area Network IP address and subnet mask of your
ZyXEL Device.
Follow these steps to configure your LAN settings.
1 Enter an IP address into the IP Address field. The IP address must be in dotted decimal
notation. This will become the IP address of your ZyXEL Device.