Home Hub 4000 Internet DHCP lease time or reserved IP address?

[paradoxpenguin]

I have Bell Fibe 1GB service with a Home Hub 4000 modem. I work from home and access servers that have an IP whitelist for external access. Every time my WAN side DHCP lease renews I get a new IP address and get blocked out of work until I am re-whitelisted. Is there a way to extend the modem's external DHCP lease time or better yet have it assign a reserved IP address? I can live with the issue if I have to re-whitelist every few months rather than every few days.

[ZaneP · Accepted solution]

Hi @paradoxpenguin 

You can extend the DHCP lease time and/or reserve IP addresses for devices connecting to the HomeHub 4000 (LAN-side).

But you're saying that the HH4K's external P address is renewing frequently with a different IP address?

In my experience with ISPs the IP address for the gateway device rarely renews with a different one.

If you need a static IP you'll need a business-level service plan from Bell. AFAIK, their residential service plans allow for dynamic IP address only, for the WAN side.

[paradoxpenguin]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply. I understand that the ask for Static IP is big ask for residential, however I was hoping for the ability to modify the lease time for the dynamic IP that is assigned by the ISP (Bell). If I had to re-whitelist my IP address for work every 90 days (or even monthly) it would be better than the almost weekly changes I see now.

I see the DHCP configuration for devices connecting to the WiFi but nothing for the router's WAN side configuration.

[ZaneP]

Hi @paradoxpenguin 

As Bell residential customers, we can't modify the lease time for our public dynamic IP addresses; WAN IP assignment is managed by ISPs. 

From what you wrote, you're connecting to your company's servers remotely. I think the best solution is a client-server VPN. This provides a private and secure tunnel through an insecure public internet. 

Once you initiate the connection and it's authenticated by the VPN server, you'll be able to map the drives for which you need access.

I suspect your company isn't running a VPN service for remote access, but it's worth asking about, imo.

[Schirmat]

Hi

I have Bell fibe in the backcountry and we get regular loss of electricity.  Everything the modem restarts we get assigned a new IP Adress forcing me to reco figure some services. It's annoying and I was hoping to secure a fixed IP Adress. Is it possible?

Thanks 

[BellPatricia · Accepted solution]

Hey @Schirmat. Thanks for reaching out to the Bell Community 🙂

@ZaneP is right in their post above: 'If you need a static IP you'll need a business-level service plan from Bell.'

- Patricia

[Paladin]

With my previous ISP I had a static IP with residential service but this is extremely rare for residential service... (Actually I had multiple static IPs, a /29 subnet...) Unfortunately they could not offer the speeds I needed...

What I did when I switched to Bell is have my (separate router) update a dynamic IP address than points to my current Bell IP. The HH4000 supports this as well but is very much limited in the numbers of dynamic DNS providers supported (2 if I remember well).

When my router sees that my IP changed it updates my DNS entry dynamically..

I then used than dynamic DNS entry (an hostname) in place of an IP address... Not all router/firewall support this but many do...

I was able to whitelist myself on the router of my parents so that I can remotely administer it, print on their printer, etc...

I did the same for the VPSes (Linux VMs) I need to administer...

It is not perfect but works quite well and is the best you can hope for with many ISPs (like Bell) as most of them are not interested in providing static IPs and similar services for residential customers...

Good luck and have a nice day!

[Paladin]

Which kind of services? Anything you could whitelist your IP using an hostname instead of an IP?

I have my (separate) router maintain a dynamic DNS entry and I whitelisted my Bell IP using this.. It could be done with the HH4000 if you don't mind only have two choices of providers (if I recall correctly...).

Not all routers support this but I was able to do everywhere I needed it (my parents router and remote VPS servers I have to maintain).

Another solution could be to use a VPN provider... Some of the same providers which allow you to mask your IP on the Internet offer services to give you a static IP address when you use them...

Good luck and have a nice day!

[ZaneP]

I recommended a client-server VPN setup to @paradoxpenguin but it requires the employer's IT department  to configure a server accordingly. It's more secure than using a VPNAAS provider, imo.

[Paladin]

I agree this would be best but I have a feeling OP is in IT (otherwise OP could not whitelist the IP on their server) and that OP knows it is not currently possible at OP's company to do this (at least for now)...

The solution I offered is something that is usually relatively easy to put in place until then...

Another solution would be to a use a VPN provider... Some of the same providers which allow you to mask your IP on the Internet offer services to give you a static IP address when you use them...

For work (I am in IT) I do use the same kind of VPN you suggested, it is mostly for personal stuff I whitelist my IP using dynamic DNS...

I went from a static IP address with my former ISP (well,it still is partially my ISP as I am still a client of theirs for another address) to a dynamic IP with a dynamic DNS entry pointing to it in just a few hours... That included time to tweak a few things for that dynamic DNS entry to be reevaluated from time to time...

I am not totally sure from reading OP's posts if the servers are at OP's workplace or remote from there too. If so, once OP starts her/his VPN to work OP would then need to open a connection to those servers (which would whitelist the workplace's IP instead of OP's...

Have a nice day

[Jansen]

Won’t a UPS solve your problem?

[Dave13]

How can I only see the channels I have subscribed to and not any other channels?

[Wolfy]

Hello,

I would like to reserved ip adress, but it failed each time (Giga hub HH4000 Fiber)
The goal is to get always th same ip address (for smart home system)

I tried also to reduce the dhcp range from 10 to 100 instead of 10 to 254.
It says setting saved, but still shows 254. Tried to reboot the modem, still the issue.
Firmware 1.19.5.4
Regards

[Wolfy]

I'm not looking for permanent ip iddress for the Wan which can be solved by many ways, I was talking about LAN. The LAN DHCP shows the possibility to reserve LAN ip address, but I got always an error message when I select this option.
The error message means nothing, surprise that nobody alerts for what it seems a bug.
Also, if I want to change the DHCP range, it says ok, but don't change the initial range.

[Vanadiel]

There were other reports of DHCP reservation based on MAC's not working in the HH4000. Don't think it got solved yet.