DHCP Reservation. Huh?

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1

I was “this close” to buying a Hubitat. Then I read the installation instructions which has me doubting myself.

I was doing good until it says I have to reserve an address on my router for the Hubitat.

Well I have an AT&T U-verse provided Arris NVG589 gateway/router. I read the admin guide online and have no idea how to do that.

Am I out of luck? It is really necessary?
Help!

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Im pretty sure I had that same Arris router model before they changed me to fiber earlier this year. The UI sucks on it but there is a place to reserve a static address based on the MAC address of the connected device. I was able to do it for my hubitat.

Accessing the hub and dashboard on the LAN is via the IP address so you dont want that to change.

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This is more of a "best practice" than a hard requirement... in general for all home automation, things work more easily and reliably when you don't have to re-resolve the IP. That said, if your router provides DNS resolution for the local LAN, you could certainly substitute the assigned hostname for access to dashboards and hub management, which should resolve to whatever the current DHCP-assigned IP is.

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4

The online manual I can find indicates that the range of DHCP addresses assigned by this router is user-configurable.

If that is correct, you can always configure your Hubitat to have an address that is outside of this range.

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5

image

You can get the Hub MAC from Settings, Hub Details.

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6

I have ATT Uverse with a Pace gateway. Configuration should be similar.

My DHCP assigned addresses seem to start at 192.168.1.65 so lower addresses my be reserved for static addresses.

  1. Check to see what ip addresses are already in use on your network. You can use the ATT SmartHomeManager app to check addresses of existing clients.
  2. Assign your Hubitat an ip address between 1-64 that is not in use.
  3. Using a computer or tablet browser, access your gateway admin interface usually at something like http://192.168.1.254.
  4. Login with the account and password printed on the yellow sticker attached to the side of your gateway to gain admin access.
  5. Look for the Settings-LAN-LAN IP Address Allocation screen to verify or change the Address Assingment proprty to be sure it is Static IP.
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Here’s the problem, I’m a programmer not a network guy. The cause and effect of me just “changing things” in my router based on something I read on the net throws up a big red flag in front of me.

Is this something Hubitat support would walk me through or would I be on my own?

You read the sales literature and it’s plug it into your router, install the iOS app, and make routines for your devices. Not exactly that easy is it for a networking novice?

I did precisely this with my Amazon Dot and run a bunch of stuff via WiFi just fine so I figured it would be similar. But I just cringe at my security loopholes every day…

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If you are not comfortable tinkering with your router, do as I did, and don't reserve the IP. I have not had one issue without doing so. find.hubitat.com is always there if your IP changes.

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Actually, my ATT gateway indicates that DHCP hands out addresses 192.168.1.64 through .253. So that means addresses.1 through .63 are reserved for assigning as static. If you just assign 192.168.1.29 to the Hubitat in its admin config (as long as that address is not already assigned), then you do not need to make any change to your ATT gateway.

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10

Adding a DHCP reservation doesn't cause any security concerns, and you have another point of reference to look up info on it. Better than using a static as there is not a readily visible way of knowing if you change your IP range later. If you replace your router sometime down the road and your range changes it wont cause a conflict also, it'll just go back to DHCP and you'll need to use find.hubitat.com again to get into it. I've been working in IT/OT since '98. Currenty, I work for Shell Oil Company doing their Industrial security for the Deer Park refinery.

DHCP reservations just tell the router to always issue the same IP to the listed MAC address and not to issue that IP for any other device.

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11

I think you mean DHCP reservation, not DNS reservation.

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12

To add to the excellent point made by @lewis.heidrick most common case people use IP reservation for the hub, is if they have integrations that depend on hub's IP address. Reserving the IP saves the work of redoing connections to the hub if its IP address changes, and the integration is unable to automatically pick up the new IP.

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13

Lol yea, I was just working on setting up DNS on a server. Guess I had it on the brain.

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14

If you don't feel comfortable reserving an IP in DHCP, you can simply make a static one directly on the hub itself. It's also not a "you must" thing, it's simply recommended. So on Hubitat HE, go to settings>>network setup and set the ip staticly. Having a static or dhcp issued address is perfectly secure.

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With the one caveat that if your lease scope changes you could have an IP conflict.

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I'm a network guy not a programmer, but I did stay in a holiday inn express last night.

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17

Good one…

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If you need a guiding hand I can help you out though. It's not a big deal to setup though.

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19

Ok I jumping in. I just ordered my Hubitat and have walked through the NVG589 screen-by-screen.

I understand the principle of the what and why and have no issue with that. So here’s what I’ll do…

Plug and power the Hubitat, connect via Ethernet cable to NVG589, access router admin function, find new device in DHCP address table, change from dynamic to static. Not that I know how to do the last part.

Install app on iPhone, open it and see what happens. Is that basically correct?

Then get a zigbee plug and figure out how to control it via the app scheduler.

Sound like a plan? Anything else I’ll need to do along the way?

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20

Just click allocate and it will set whatever IP it gets as its' static.

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