Hi! I’m studying and it says that it’s better to have a static IP address for a printer when a power outage occurs since the printer can come back up faster with static ip then a dynamic.
Why is static better?
In: Technology
not necessarily faster, but if you’re relying on dhcp and don’t have a reservation set then you may have to scan the subnet or log in to your router to find out which ip the printer is using after a power outage. a static ip = it’s always at the same ip.
An IP is essentially a phone number. A static IP address means that the phone number will always be the same so your computer basically has it saved so it goes to contacts and dials that number, for the device it has the number stored locally.
For a dynamic IP address a device asks a service for a new number when it boots up, and when something else wants to contact that device it has to look up the number. That said those activities take milliseconds, for most people on a home network static IPs aren’t necessary.
Sometimes the connection to your printer from your computer is IP based which means your computer will search for the IP that you initially set it up with. If the IP of the printer isn’t static, that IP address can change and your computer won’t know the new IP meaning you won’t be able to print.
Like sending mail to your friend. They always have the same address so you know where to send the mail. If they’re constantly moving, it’s a lot harder to make sure you have the new address and are able to send to the right place. Static is a permanent address essentially.
If your printer relies on DHCP then it has to establish a connection to the router (which itself is trying to recover from the power outage) before it reaches a stable state where its able to print. Similarly, the device needing to print has to determine the potentially new IP address for that particular printer before it can send the print job to it.
A static IP address forgoes all that and the device printing can connect with the printer quicker and with less network traffic.
I wouldn’t say static is “better”, especially not because of the scenario of it coming up faster after a power outage.
The scenario where dynamic fails is if your devices have the printer configured by IP address. If the IP address changes, then you run into problems. This is most likely to occur after a power outage, but could happen at other times if the printer is powered off for an extended period and has its lease expire.
These days though, most OS’s discover and add network printers by hostname. The printer can hop all over the network.
For an enterprise environment though, you want static printer IPs for management purposes. Basically anything running 24/7, you want to plan for the IPs so you can better manage your network. Maybe you specifically subnet your printers, or maybe you specifically subnet different office locations and the printer is on a specific IP of the subnet for each office. But if you configure a static IP on the printer itself, then you have to physically go to the printer to change anything on it. Most companies would just assign pre-reserved DHCP addresses instead these days.
Also, the use case of “the printer can come back up faster after a power outage” is ludicrous. Unless your printer is an industrial printer printing something like drivers licenses or passports, then the lead in time is kind of negligible. How often are you even experiencing a power failure, and is your #1 priority to start printing again ASAP?
I’ll try an actual ELI5.
Say you’re in the phone book with the phone number 555-1234. Everyone knows when they look up your name that your phone number is 555-1234 so they save your number in their speed dial. Now what if everyone gets a new phone number every time a phone book is printed. It would take longer to figure out what your number is because they will now need to look it up and make a note of it. A static IP is your assigned phone number it never changes unless you request that it be changed.
A static IP is stored in the printer so it doesn’t need to talk to the DHCP server when it is rebooted to get an address.
This can be helpful if I need to manage the device but the DHCP server is down. I can assign a static IP on my computer to the same assigned network as the printer, then directly connect to the printer and manage it by going to the printer’s IP address in a browser.
The short answer is that there is no well-functioning universal mechanism for computers to find printers easily. Your computer probably remembers the last IP address it used to talk with your printer. But, if that IP address changes, then your computer needs to find the printer again, and that doesn’t always work well. If your printer has a static IP address, then your computer already knows how to find the printer.
Note that you don’t actually have to set the static IP address in the printer — you can tell your router “always give this printer this IP address.”
Let’s say your network is a hotel. IP Addresses are various rooms at the hotel. The DHCP server is the front desk and is responsible for handing out keys to the rooms.
The reason you want printers on a static IP Address is because if there’s an outage, the printer might get a new address/room number assigned to it. Older printers/drivers usually don’t communicate the room change. Even newer ones are unreliable in updating the address. As a result, print orders will go to the wrong address/room number and will not be printed.
There’s two ways to set a static IP Address: on the device itself or through DHCP reservations.
If you set it on the device itself, it’ll always use that address but you risk an IP Conflict if the DHCP hands out the same address. It’d be like the printer walking past the front desk and squatting in the room. The front desk might give out the key to the same room not knowing the printer is there. (This can be avoided by using a static address outside the DHCP Scope.
DHCP Reservations is basically the server reserving that IP Address specifically for the printer and will not give it out to other devices. Using the hotel example again, the front desk has instructions to keep a specific room available for a specific VIP and to only let that VIP use that room.
I went on a bit of a tangent but I hope this helps.
Imagine an apartment building where there’s a number on your door. Today it’s 42.
There’s an index in the office that says u/gravity_shift ‘s door is 42 today. It has an index of all your neighbors too. If someone needs to find you or your neighbor, they just have to check the list.
This is like dynamic IP addresses for your LAN.
But what if we didn’t assign you a different number everyday? What if we kept the number on your door 42?
I’d be able to know which door is yours without having to check the mailroom. I wouldn’t have to write down a different address every time I’m mailed you something. It will save a little bit of time not having to look things up.
Static vs Dymanic WAN addresses are similar, but imagine instead of your apartment number, the whole buildings street address changes periodically. That makes things like hosting servers or looking at surveillance cameras remotely more complicated and require extra steps if you don’t have a static IP.
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