[wellylug] Samba & DHCP config ?

[Cliff Pratt]

Roger Young wrote:
> 
> I'm confused :( Doesn't the router need to have control 
> of the IP addresses on the home network so that it can 
> distribute the internet traffic correctly?
> 
If you are talking about NAT (network address translation)
by the router, then no, the addresses don't need to be
statically assigned.

When a request to say www.debian.org from an internal client
reaches the router, it remembers the IP and (high order) 
port that the request came in on and send the request on, 
changing the source IP address to its own external IP 
address (and probably changing the source port too). When 
the response comes back, the router recognises the IP 
address (its own) and the destination port (assigned by it) 
and this matches the information it has about the internal 
IP and port that the request originally came so it has 
enough information to send the response back to the correct 
internal IP and port.

It doesn't matter that the internal IP address is
dynamically assigned since the information in the router is
only current until the response is received back from the
target host.

If you are talking about IP forwarding (you are running a
Web Server behind the router) then, yes, the IP address does
have to be static.

Cheers,

Cliff