Someone is going to be very angry at me and I don't care.

[gythiawulfie.livejournal.com]

For the past 7 years, our little divison of the university, has held the same set of IP addresses.

For the past 7 years, outside of the initial set up and the migration 2 years ago into AD, I have been the only one who administers or uses / reuses these IP addresses. There are exactly 50 of them and our range ends 168.1 - 168.50 That's it.

Aside from a computer not being used inbetween position shifts (a month or 2 between personnel), they have been used continuously.

So, imagine my surprise when all of a sudden, one of the computers in the last 2 weeks has started getting an IP conflict. Well, I told myself, I did just get done swapping out 9 old computers for new ones. Per chance I did a typo when reassigning one of the computers. I could have easily typed a 31 instead of a 21 when typing in the IP address.

Well, I went on all 28 computers. Nope. I checked to see if one of the network printers got accidentally reassigned (though I am the only with access to that). Nope.

So, I knew the conflict wasn't here at our location.

However, in a meeting last week, I got told they had been having some problems on the main campus, because they ran a program telling them which IP's weren't being used. This resulted in IP conflicts because they weren't asking for a new series but just randomly assigning new IP's. WHY they would start doing this I don't know. I'm not even sure how they went about figuring out what wasn't being "used", but if a computer is being used by a person on a 10 month contract (they are off in the summers) then for 2 months, their IP will show up as unused, as they aren't logged onto the network.

So, I now had to call the help-desk (I could have done a ticket, but I am limited to 600 characters, and this was too complicated). I wasn't sure if it was going to be someone in networking, or it was going to be someone else. More than likely someone else. Who ever the IP addy guru is. I know it isn't one of the 2 hardware people I talk too, and if I had known exactly who, I would have bypassed the help desk all together, and usually I get M, H or J, and they just put me through, because if I call, its not because I can't log in. It used to go to my person at the COE first, but he has been replaced and the new guy has been there 2 weeks.

So, I explained the problem.

After 7 years, of using this IP address, I have been getting an IP conflict in just the last 2 weeks. I told them not ONLY the IP Address, but the gateway, AD assigned computer name the whole shabang. I gave him all of the information he could ask for. I explained that the conflict needed to be hunted down on their end, and the other computer, which is NOT in my AD but using one of my AD deliniations, needed to be migrated and changed into its proper place.

I explained it 4 times.

I went through the proceedure he asked me to go through 4 times. (although I had already done the ipconfig /renew)

Same result,3 mins later, IP address conflict.

I explained I needed to know where the conflict was coming from, or have someone look into it for me, as I could not from my end.

He didn't listen. I asked for M, he was off today (great).

I explained it again three more times.

I realized he was trying to find a script on this. (There won't be one)

I realized he had no clue as to who I was. (there are several new people aparently)

He said he couldn't help me, he had to escalate it. (I figured that)

I can't wait to see who was the smart alec and gave a computer an IP address belonging to my end of the trunk.

They were probably taking a short cut, and instead of sending in the AD/IP request (takes 3 days on average, lots of new puters) just went... ooohhh look, un used, we'll worry about the AD later.

I have not had to do that, because well, I have had the same number of computers and IP addies since may of 99. Like I said, 7 years.

Fun fun fun fun fun.

Comments

[travisd.livejournal.com]

Who runs the router and switches? 2 minutes on the router should give you a MAC address for whomever is stealing the IP. And a proper managed switch should point you to a specific network port that this MAC is appearing on. Apply clue-bat as necessary. Generally, shutting down their port will get the offender to call in wondering why they can't connect. Alternately, on windows, nbtstat can be your friend. It frequently will expose a hostname and/or username that you can use to track them down.

Ultimately, get a proper subnet allocated, and use a routed connection so that you aren't sharing a wire with someone else who can randomly steal your ip's.

That's all handled remotely by Univeristy personelle

[gythiawulfie.livejournal.com]

That's why I called. We have our own subnet, (supposedly) but see, we are in the middle of no-where, and most times, I get forgotten.

I just have control of my computers here.

Re: That's all handled remotely by Univeristy personelle

[travisd.livejournal.com]

.1 thru .50 isn't actually a real "subnet" per se - a /26 would give you .0 thru .63 with .0 being the subnet, and .63 broadcast. A /27 would only give you .0 thru .31. You're sharing a subnet with someone else...

Re: That's all handled remotely by Univeristy personelle

[gythiawulfie.livejournal.com]

No, I know that, those are the IP's I'm assigned.

XXX.XX.168.1 et

The subnet mask apparently allows for talk between 4 different subnets

I don't know that much about the subnets, I just handle our computers and our set of IP's, I have the numbers and I plug them in.

It's still annoying. I think what happened is someone LOST the list. They tried to recompile it the easy way, and oooopppppssss.

In fact I think our subnet mask is something like XXX.XXX.252.0 I'd have to look on my sheet.

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

Ugggggh, that is the most retarded thing ever. I hope the responsible party gets stuck in a rotisserie.

wtf

[astevenson.livejournal.com]

has someone never heard of DHCP?

Re: wtf

[ace-brickman.livejournal.com]

I think they mentioned it's a university environment. Even with DHCP ranges doled out, an IP address going to a different lab/school/bldg is still a bad thing, when it comes down to problem tracking, etc..

[tothwolf.livejournal.com]

Been there, done that. Worst one I had was when I had a department NFS server loose its address to a roguenew web server that another department set up on their own. I got overruled when I tried to get them to change the address to something that wouldn't conflict. In the end, I had to assign a new address to the NFS server and reconfigure a ton of clients.

If it happened to me today, I think I'd only need two tools. A handheld network analyzer to hunt it down, and an Etherkiller, preferably with a NEMA L16-30P (3 phase, 480V) twist-lock plug on the supply end, to put a stop to it.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Also, being a university, it's not outside the realms of possibility that some tosser has bought themselves a wireless router (or a normal one, but wireless is more likely), which is handing out its own addresses via DHCP, and conflicting with the ones you want to assign.

I hope they've got a record of all the router/switch addresses to eliminate that possibility.