How to set up both static and DHCP assigned addresses on an AirPort Extreme

So we are talking about static IPs on your local LAN right, not static IPs that your ISP has assigned you?

I'm going to go with LAN for now. Run AirPort Utility. Select your AirPort device, then click Edit. Go to the Network tab. Just for clarification, Apple doesn't allow us to use all of the private IP addresses for whatever reason, which is why you can only select 10.0, 172.16, and 192.168, unfortunately. I don't know of any way to get around that.

To setup static private IPs on your LAN you just use the box called DHCP reservations. Enter a description, the MAC address of the device, and then the static IP address you want to assign.

To change the range of your DHCP reservations you can click on the Network Options, though I suspect you have already been there. Honestly, you've probably done all of this already so let me go ahead and ask exactly what is happening that is keeping you from getting static IP address or DHCP addresses assigned correctly?

You don't have to manually input the IP addresses on your devices, you can just have your AirPort assign them their IP addresses for the ones you want assigned using the procedure described above. For all the other ones that you don't need a static IP for just allow the AirPort to automatically assign them using DHCP.

Even the devices that need a static IP can get their address from the AirPort using DHCP on the device itself - the AirPort will assign them the specified IP address you put in for them based upon their MAC address. If you didn't enter their MAC address in the AirPort Utility then they will be automatically assigned an IP address from the range of IP addresses you specified for DHCP.

Yes, that's what I do.

I got my Airport Express to use 10.75.20.x/24 as its DHCP address range, by exporting the configuration and hand-editing it. Seems to work fine but I can't change it through Airport Utility 6.1, it still shows only 10.0 as a prefix choice.

Seems to work fine but I can't change it through Airport Utility 6.1, it still shows only 10.0 as a prefix choice.

You may not be looking in the right place. Open AirPort Utility, click on the AirPort Express, and click Edit

Click the Network tab

Click the Network Options tab

You have options to change change the DHCP ranges from 10.0.x.x to 198.168.x.x to 172.16.x.x, just like in previous versions of AirPort Utility.

Yes but the point is you cannot set it to 10.1 or 10.2 or ... which are all perfectly valid for the class A 10.x.x.x/8 block. I think this is just an oversight by Apple.

As I mentioned previously you can work around this by exporting the settings, hand editing occurrences of 10.0, and importing the settings. This is working fine for me.

I've submitted a product feedback bug fix request to Apple on this.

Yes but the point is you cannot set it to 10.1 or 10.2 or ... which are all perfectly valid for the class A 10.x.x.x/8 block. I think this is just an oversight by Apple.

If it is an oversight, it has been in effect since Apple started marketing routers 7-8 years ago.

I've submitted a product feedback bug fix request to Apple on this

Good luck on that one. I've spoken to Apple several times about this. They consider it a "feature", not a "bug". Maybe you will have better luck than others in this regard.

I don't think that Apple will consider their limited choices a "bug" - that is the way they designed it - any properly configured device whether Apple or PC or printer or wireless device will automatically be assigned the first open address from 2-200 - in fact if you turn on your devices one by one, the first 29 will get a static address so that even if they are turned off, the address is recovered and won't be reassigned to a new device - and I always have 40-50 wired/wireless devices on my Extreme network and have tried both 192 and 10 - I have never had a problem even in power outages except for one old printer that I am too lazy to reassign a 2-30 address.

Well sure, but my use case is that I am importing a set of virtual machines from a co-worker and running them in my home lab. In his (real) lab they have everything set up to use different /8 subnets for each project, and he was assigned 10.75.20.x for his. If I can't replicate that base network I have to hand reconfigure all the VMs.

Anyway Apple is being stupid not to support the proper range of private IPs as specified in the RFCs. I can't imagine why they consider that a "feature".

In any case I have my workaround so I'm good for now.

I have found the 'DHCP Reservations' option on the AirPort Extreme to be buggy. I seem to remember it causing IP conflicts for some reason. I think what I remember is that if the computer with the reservation was off, and the DHCP server then handed out that IP to another DHCP client, then there would be a conflict when the reserved IP computer was turned back on. Maybe it was an issue in ealier versions of the AE or OS X as the case may be, and maybe it's been corrected, but I've never bothered using it agian since the method I describe below has always worked without fail. Also, I'm guessing DHCP Reservations would work fine if one manually enters IPs outside of the DHCP range but in the AE 'DHCP Reservation Setup Assistant' the IP options provided are within the DHCP range which to me makes no sense and increases the potential for IP conflicts.

Here's what I do to setup a mixed environment of static and dynamic IPs on my network. It works like a charm and does not require the DHCP server (beyond the distribution of dynamic IPs to hosts using DHCP).

For machines on my network that are accepting services from the public network, I set them up with static IPs using the 'Manually' option (System Preferences/Network/Ethernet/Configure IPv4). The settings for 'Router' IP address and 'DNS Server' IP address should both be set with your gateway/router LAN IP). Use an IP address below or above the DHCP range of adresses (in AE/Internet/DHCP/DHCP Beginning & Ending Address).

i.e. if my subnet is 10.0.1.1 and my DHCP range is 10.0.1.100 to 10.0.1.150, you could set the static IPs on your local hosts as 10.0.1.x where x = any number from 2 - 99 or from 151 - 200 as an example.

All other machines and devices that do not require static routing are setup as DHCP clients and get a dynamic IP from the AE. To me it's a simpler setup though it might take a little extra time to setup initially.

John