OSX / Windows network share keeps changing its IP address

[brothercake]

I've got Win XP and Mac OSX connected with a x-over cable, and I'm doing windows file sharing, which works just fine ...

... except the Mac's IP address keeps changing. I thought it was rebooting the PC that made it happen - because it was 192.168.0.182 last night (the "lock" was clicked to prevent further changes and the mac itself was in "sleep" mode) but 192.168.0.143 when I started this morning (and it was unlocked again) ... but now I come to reboot again, to see if that's it, it doesn't change.

So wassup? What's making it change and how can I stop it?

[sage45]

Most likely it is the IP service itself... Even though the OS has an internal DHCP Server (hence the IP of 192.XXX.XXX.XXX, which is a reserved range), it still will search for an external DHCP Server... Usually whenever there is a change on the network (say a system is turned off or turned on... a system goes to sleep... a new network service is detected [i.e. -- NETBeui, NETBIOS]), the OS's internal DHCP server releases it's IP to attempt and gain an externally assigned IP... If no externally assigned IP source is available then the internal DHCP server renews its IP... Most likely what is happening is that the internal DHCP mechanism recognizes that one IP was used before and assumes that it is in use by another system/service... So that it wont run the risk of an IP conflict it assigns a new one...

The best thing to do though is to go ahead and use a static IP if you are just using a cross-over cable...

-sage-

[brothercake]

oh cool; I didn't realise I could do that, but it's obvious now you say .. thanks :)