easy? router question

ok I have a D-link DSL 504G router and i want to use emule. I need to use port forwarding to get the most out of emule. the D-link manual says to tick the automatic IP address thing and i cant use port forwarding with this on. Also my router uses DHCP - what happens if i assign a static IP address??

basically could anyone help me with this - i want to set up a static IP address and still use my router. I dont want to screw anything up as i have already played around a little and had to do a hopeful reset when everything died.

i was thinking of doing the following:
tick use the following ip address
-IP adress 10.1.1.2
-submask 255.0.0.0
-gateway 10.1.1.1

now what do i put into the DNS thing??
what should i do for DHCP

will i still be able to get into my routers features by typing 10.1.1.1 into the browser.

sorry for the long post but help would be appreciated
thanks.

[Aemon_]

i'm no networking genius, but here is my understanding.

go ahead and assign a static ip if you want and leave DHCP on, that way if you ever plug in another machine it will be able to grab an ip. i think your ip, subnet, and gateway look fine. there should be an option like 'replicate dns' or somthing like that for the router to grab its ip (from the isp). and yeah, if all works correctly you can still access your router.

hope this helps.

later

[Dragon]

i was under the impression that if you leave the IP address on obtain automatically it will stay the same, and just be assigned by the router. this is how mine works, ive got a linksys. ive had to forward ports for neXBC, Vonage, FTP, and alot of other things and ive never had to assigna address manually.

try this: leave it on automatic, go to your network connections and find your comps IP, then forward the ports to it. i cant think of any reasons why this wouldnt work.

[vee_ess]

On your router, you will need to go to the Advanced tab > Static Routing. In there, you can route the data.

very strange - i assigned my own IP as stated above and forwarded ports for emule and shareazy. everything seemed to have worked because i could get much of a search with shareazy before. NOW the problem:

-i couldnt search the internet. No web pages could open up. however i could use emule and sharezy and also play games over the internet however could no browse pages (such as google etc). the main problem was that i couldnt open the test page for emule so i couldnt even see if the required ports were open or not.

i have no idea what is going on.

i have now assigned ip automatically (which is why i can type this).

I have left the forwarding for the ports on however now when i test the emule ports it says it has failed. i really have no idea what is going on as my router knowlege is very limited.

any more suggestions??
thanks

(i have a dlink DSL 504G router)

I have found out that because i didnt put anything in for the DNS part when putting in a manual IP address has caused my problem.

Can anyone tell me what i should put in as my preffered DNS server so i can browse the internet

thanks

[Jason425]

depends on your ISP

[vee_ess]

Jason425 is absolutely right. To find out what your preferred DNS server is, first change the settings to how they were before. Then, when your internet access is restored to normal, go to:

Start > Run > type "command.com" (no quotes) > press ENTER > type "ipconfig /all" (again no quotes)

The information needed should be displayed. Then go back and forward your ports again, this time with the DNS servers, too.

Also, what settings are you using to forward ports? From what you are talking about (preferred DNS server) it sounds like you are trying to have the router act as the DNS proxy instead of your ISP. I would suggest changing the DNS Relay Selection to Disabled, so that the ISP will determine the DNS servers.

[Omega]

Many/most routers allow will forward DNS requests to the ISP's DHCP-assigned DNS servers (because its WAN config will know what DNS servers your ISP's DHCP server told it to use). That means that you could just use the same address for Primary DNS Server as you do for Default Gateway (10.1.1.1).

Alternately, you can use public internet DNS servers, if you don't want to go to the trouble of finding your ISP's. 128.101.101.101 and 134.84.84.84 are common ones that I know people around the internet use, because they're easy to remember (they're run by the University of Minnesota and they've been around for ever, as a side note).

I'm pretty sure you don't want to do what vee_ess says. Static routing is something different from port forwarding and that stuff. If you don't know what that stuff means, I'm not going to explain more than to say that you don't want to mess with it.

To clear up a few things (hopefully), about DHCP vs static IP assignment:

If you're only running a couple computers on your LAN, you're probably just fine to leave the router's DHCP server enabled, but statically assign your computer's IP address. If you want to be even safer, assign it an IP address that's outside the scope/range that your DHCP server is set to assign (it might be set to assign 10.1.1.2 - 10.1.1.25 or something, so you could use 10.1.1.26). Many DHCP servers will cache the entries that it has assigned in the past, so when your computer gets assigned an address once, it will get assigned that address every time it requests an address. This is not inherent to how the DHCP system works, though, and you /shouldn't/ depend on this, ideally.

[Dragon]

curently i have my IP manually configured. all i did to find out DNS was set it to automatic, go to connections>> status [of your internet connection] >> support >> advanced. and it will list them, then set it back to manual and type them in.