General discussion about Setup/Configuration

[powtac]

The goal is to make it as easy as possible to setup a new Autarc LAN Scanner. Those information are needed to run the Scanner:

Parameter	Device/Hardware specific?	Networks specific?	Required?	Can be set in advance?	Description
MAC address	✅	🔴	✅	✅	Printed on hardware
Assigned IP address	🔴	✅	?	🔴	Given by local router
Gateway	🔴	✅	?	?
Subnet	🔴	✅	?	?
Use DHCP	🔴	✅	?	?
Nr of pings	🔴	🔴	?	✅	IS this pingrequest?
Use Subnetting	🔴	✅	🔴	✅
IP range	🔴	?	✅	?
Key for Server storage (AVRID)	🔴	🔴	✅	✅	A short string that identifies the scanner, like "Tim00" or "Simon"

The column "Required" shows if we really need the value of this parameter. This means we could omit all the other values and set default values if we can.

@PcTim can you check what can be set for the missing ("?") values of the "Required" column? I want to use this matrix to figure out what can be improved in the setup.

[PcTim]

If we use a DHCP server "Assigned IP address" is not required.
Most modern networks uses DHCP so we could make this optional.
The same with "Gateway" and "Subnet".

If we use subnetting, the IP range can be calculated. I think we should make a "normal" configuration and an advanced configuration.

The process for the normal configuration could be:

• Ask for MAC

(- Ask for AVRID) (Maybe we could get it from the server at first startup)

• Try to get DHCP

  -> possible:

  • Read assigned IP address
  • Read Gateway
  • Read Subnetmask
  • Set IP range with subnetting

  -> failed

  • Ask for IP
  • Ask for Gateway (I have to check if it's really necessary)
  • Ask for Subnetmask (I have to check if it's really necessary)
  • Set IP range with subnetting

In advanced configuration everything can be set up.
Yes, Nr of pings is pingrequest. We could use a default value.

[PcTim]

Yeah! :) We can set up a connection only with MAC and IP. We get the Gateway and Subnetmask from the network.
But we should test it with a router which doesn't support DHCP. Maybe this is the reason why it works?

[PcTim]

I found an option to deactivate DHCP in my router. And tested it successful!
So Gateway and Subnetmask aren't necessary. We could delete them from all setups, or?

[powtac]

I'm not sure, does the Ethernet Shield require an IP address? Will the shield get an IP address without DHCP?

Am 01.07.2014 um 10:54 schrieb Tim notifications@github.com:

I found an option to deactivate DHCP in my router. And tested it successful!
So Gateway and Subnetmask aren't necessary. We could delete them from all setups, or?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[PcTim]

Without an IP adress, we call the function for getting the IP from DHCP.
And this fails, without an DHCP server. I've tested it.

So we require an IP address.

[PcTim]

If we have no DHCP, or it fails, we need the gateway, dns and subnetmask. Otherwise we would use wrong defaults:

gateway: defaults to the device IP address with the last octet set to 1
subnet: defaults to 255.255.255.0
(http://arduino.cc/de/Reference/EthernetBegin)

[PcTim]

We also have to set the dns server now. (see #12)

[PcTim]

retry of server connecection was also added (retryHost)

[PcTim]

I've created a diagram: d1e4d3e

Should we add a setup page on the arduino server?

[PcTim]

setup menu is like in the diagram. 7e69ba5

[powtac]

Wow! Cool!