On 6/26/06, Shawn Tan wrote: > 4. Ideally, your device should be preconfigured to some private IP address, > like 10.0.0.1 or whatever.. Then, you can connect it to a network, > temporarily modify your PC to be in the same IP range and connect to the > device.. > > Then, you can either implement a simple "telnet" server or even run a > small "web server" that displays a configuration page.. For future > connections, you can even implement a small dhcp client.. I've always found that to be a bit of a pain, but you're right, it is a valid solution. > 5. However, from your description, it seems that you might like your devices > to be "auto configured".. then, you may want to implement a small dhcp client > in your device.. but this requires that you have a DHCP server running on the > network.. it could use it's MAC address as a "hostname" identifier to the > server.. You can group your devices under a common MAC identifier.. My problem with DHCP is that if I randomly hand out IP addresses, how can I ensure that the device at 192.168.1.32 is going to be the same each time? The devices I'm thinking about will always need to be repeatably addressed based on their physical location, which is something that Ethernet doesn't really care about - you can plug your cable in anywhere and still get a connection. Perhaps a combo of assigning an IP address via DHCP then using the MAC address as an identifier? Josh -- A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist