dhcp reservations

Routers are not all identical.. so what applies to one often does not apply to another.

Some routers must have the DHCP configured for the whole range you expect to use for both static reserved and DHCP..

Some routers can assigned IP outside the DHCP range.. Are you talking about an Apple router?? If so which one and we can easily check.. if it is some other brand read their manual.. or do an experiment.

To answer specifically

> Change dhcp range in Router go .100-.254 then reboot router to move dynamic devices in .2-.99 range out to the .100-.254 range?

As you can see by the earlier info.. it all depends.. some routers work one way and others work another.

Find out how yours works.

> If by mistake I made several dhcp reservations in the .2-.99 before moving out any dynamic devices in that range by the aforementioned method, can I fix any ip conflicts by rebooting the router?

Be smart.

Routers should not assign IP by DHCP that is already static IP even if it is assigned by the device itself.

You can do a couple of things here to make your life easy..

1. Make the DCHP lease time short.. I mean 10min.. 600sec. or whatever is min time.. sometimes it will be 1hour. That means DHCP renewal is going to happen rapidly.. you can fix it back to standard default.. usually one day once you complete your mission.
2. Run a network scanner to find all the assigned devices.. There is none readily available for the Mac I know of.. but FING on iOS is great.. as also the free version of inet which is only available for iOS.
3. Any device that you want to use a particular address.. do it statically on the device first.. make sure you have network connection and therefore it is recorded in the router ARP and DHCP tables.. Then assign that same IP via DHCP reservation on the router.. then remove the static IP on the device.. (although it is not really necessary).. when you go back to DHCP it will 99% of the time work fine.. and stick to the static IP.
4. Take time needed .. this is generally easier to accomplish if you wait for the current DHCP leases to expire and start to pull down 10min ones.. so set the router now.. if you have normal 1 day lease.. by the same time tomorrow all devices should be on short leases.. and will change over rapidly to your static assignments.

 If I want to give dhcp reservations to improve wifi connectivity, and my router dhcp pool is 192.167.1.2-.254......

Did you mean to say that your (AirPort Extreme?) Router DHCP Range is 192.168.1.2-254?

how do I set aside a block of ip addresses for dhcp reserves clients (for example make .2-.99 for dhcp reservations and .100-.254 for dynamic range ) without causing conflicts with devices already in the .2-.99 range? 

You can't. You have to assign DHCP Reservations by individual device......not necessarily by range.

For example, you set up reservations for 30 devices using 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.31. A device that has not been assigned a reserved address will connect at something above 192.168.1.32.

But, if you started reservations at 192.168.1.100 and worked up from there for reservations, then devices that did not have a reserved IP address would connect starting at 192.168.1.2 and stay in the range up to 192.168.1.99

It is not possible to allocate bandwidth by range or IP address on an AirPort router.

finally, will the reserved ips take effect uniformly when i reboot the router or do some clients have to be rebooted as well?

In theory, yes. In practice, it would be better to power off all the clients, then power them back up one at a time checking as you go.

if i am looking to make all dhcp reservations between .2-.99, what should i set the ipv4 dhcp range to?

Add up the number of devices that will have reserved IP's and those that won't, then add another 10 or so for expansion.

So, if you will have 20 devices using reserved IP's and another 20 that won't, I would set the range for 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.50

You can always expand the range upwards later if you need to.

There are other more complicated ways to do this as well. My neighbor (and I) use the 10.0.1.x range of IP addresses.

Every one of his reserved IP addresses is a multiple of 10, so his reserved IP's look something like.....

10.0.1.10, 10.0.1.20, 10.0.2.30, 10.0.1.40, etc. Other non-reserved IP addresses connect using random other IP addresses. The DHCP range that he uses is the standard 10.0.1.2 to 10.0.1.200.

As I suggested, if you start reservations at 192.168.1.100 and move up from there, then any devices that do not have a reservation will connect in the 192.168.1.2 to 99 range.

It is true that AirPort Utility cannot display wired "clients", but if you assign reservations to wired clients, you will at least know what IP address they are being assigned.

Makes sense to assign reserved IP addresses to the other four AirPorts if only to know what IP address each is receiving in case troubleshooting is needed.

Makes sense to assign reserved IP addresses to the other four AirPorts if only to know what IP address each is receiving in case troubleshooting is needed.

Both Bob and I recommend this.. and it is really better to assign the IP outside of the DHCP range.. and to do it on the airport itself .. even if you your aim is not to do this with devices.. in the sense that the airports are vital parts of your network.

am hoping i can do this without setting static ips on the devices

But I have got the point you are talking about.. Make it all happen via dhcp reservations..

How many devices do you need on static IP??

What model is your main router AE?

What models are all the rest?

Are they going to be wired or wirelessly connected to the main AE?

As a matter of interest do you happen to have a PC in the network.. as 5.6 utility in windows is a lot smarter than the current Mac version.. and will show all the details of connections.

Some users assign reserved IP addresses outside of the normal DCHP range and some don't. It's personal preference more than anything else in my opinion.

Personally, I have never used reserved IP addresses outside of the normal range, whatever normal might be. But, there is nothing wrong about doing this if that is what the user prefers.

which mac to use for dhcp reservations for my 5 airport extreme's

It makes no difference.. you can use any Mac to do the setup.

All routers should show up in your airport utility.. if not you can swap from wired to wireless in the utility.

This is a total mystery to me to this day.. I discovered it by accident. An airport that extends by wireless should still show up in the network even if you only have a ethernet connection..

The airport utility will give you the option to change over from wireless to wired.. but with Macs it is easy to turn on wireless.. as well as have ethernet. You should still see all your airports from either network connection.

And as yet another BTW..

I can access the LAN on my double NAT Extreme.. although I have nothing in the computer on that IP range because I left setup over wan turned on.

You must turn off setup over WAN due to security problems.. unless you are double NATting in your own network.. then it does not matter.

You will not see this option in a bridged airport because there is no WAN port.

With everything in bridge it is easy.. this is showing the extend wireless even when wireless is turned off in the computer.

The error btw is just the firmware needs updating.

Now.. I have configured a spare old AE as double NAT router.. Using your desired IP range.. and DHCP scope set to 2-200 ie default

I set a reserve IP of 201 for a MacBook I have plugged in by ethernet.

The Mac actually worked and picked up this address.. it took several renewals before it worked.. so if you don't succeed keep trying ..

It means you can set reservations outside of your DHCP range in the Airport.. I must try and remember that fact.. You could also assign addresses inside but that makes it easy peasy for you .. as all addresses that are static can now be set outside your DHCP scope.

Makes it extremely easy.. but getting MAC address details or info from network can be more easily handled by FING etc.

There is a limit to how many addresses you can assign. 20 rings a bell.. Bob might know??

And there might be a sneaky trick to get around that even.

Particularly if any client is wired to a bridged AE.. rather than back to the main router.. you can setup the AE as DHCP server without NAT.. and assign it a small range.. if you get to needing this ask and we can give you more details.

i already have set about a dozen devices to .2-.99 range and set the ipv4 dhcp range to .100-.254

your system makes sense now that i see it, but at this point i would rather not redo all the reservations (and router and device reboots) unless i have to.....

if i am looking to make all dhcp reservations between .2-.99, what should i set the ipv4 dhcp range to?

I would do it a bit different to what Bob is suggesting.. since you already use DHCP range.. non-standard.. stick with that.

Then you can still set the reservation in the 2-99 range even though it is not in your DHCP scope it still work.

So this works fine..

As far as the actual static IP of each Router is concerned.. as I put in your other thread.. open the airport in the airport utility.. go to Internet tab and change it there.

This is my own Time Capsule.. set to specific IP in the network.. Direct.. it works better this way. It will not have to be plugged into the network to get an address.. if the main router fails it will hold its IP.. definitely superior.. when you have a lot of AP units..