Using a switch correctly

[Bluecube]

I've recently bought a second hand manual-less Asus GigaX 1008 switch to play about with. However when I plug my PC into the switch no IP is assigned. I'm under the impression that switches are fairly intelligent and have built in DHCP and what not, all accessible from a HTML admin page. Am I right? Because if I am then I may well have a dud switch...

TIA

[Jay]

that switch is not a managed switch so it will not act as a DHCP

[Bluecube]

So it's just a "plug everything in and get on with it" type switch? ie manually assign IPs on two PCs, plug them in and voila, all OK?

[Jay]

... yup

[Bluecube]

Lovely! Ta for that because I was heading down a road of much confusion!

[watercooled]

Plugging two PCs into an unmanaged switch is basically the same as directly connecting both PCs with a cable, if you want IP addresses to be assigned automatically connect it to a LAN port on your router (assuming your router has an active DHCP server of course).

[Moby-Dick]

only layer 3 switches would offer something like dhcp. you can always run dhcp on a pc.

[kidzer]

And of course, if you plug two PCs running Windows into an L2 switch and they're configured to use DHCP then they'll configure link-local addresses from the 169.254.0.0/16 network (I think thats the right network!) - a feature known as APIPA if memory serves.

I'm not sure if it exists in the IPv4 implementation other OS' - I haven't seen it anyway!

[watercooled]

I almost forgot about that (APIPA)! Yeah, it's really handy for just linking Windows computers together with little or no configuration, kind of like a plug'n'play system.

[Bluecube]

In the end I just plugged it into my router which has DHCP. Voila! No issues and everything worked.