DHCP on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit with Motorola Netopia Router 2247-62

Question

I have set up DHCP in my Motorola Netopia Router, and have this also set on my laptop, i.e, to obtain IP and DNS automatically.

In the router, I have set up my ISP DNS servers...

Primary DNS Server 159.134.0.1 dns1.eircom.net Secondary DNS Server 159.134.0.2 dns2.eircom.net

When I run ipconfig /all from a cmd prompt on the PC, I get the following:

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Atheros AR9285 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : C4-17-FE-2F-85-B5

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::4922:63e4:d867:b9ac%12(Preferred)

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.11(Preferred)

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 12 June 2011 12:29:33

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 12 June 2011 14:17:52

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.254

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.254

DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 331618302

DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-12-EF-1B-82-00-26-9E-F0-F9-3A

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.254

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

So, even though I have set up the DNS sever addresses in the Router, my Laptop is showing the Gateway/Router IP as my DNS server(s).

My question is, how can I get the actual DNS server IP's on my PC? using the ipconfig DOS command?

TIA for all replies :)

Answer 1

That is just the way some routers work. Unless your DHCP Server setup in the router allows you to specify the DNS server, it will use itself and proxy all requests on your behalf. I checked the documentation, and it did not look like there was a place to specify the DNS server options that it will give out when a DHCP request is made.

In that case, if you really want to use a different DNS server, you can set that and still get the IP address from DHCP. I attached a screen shot showing this.

http://www.netopia.com/support/hardware/technotes/CQG_121.html (near the bottom)

http://www.netopia.com/support/hardware/manuals/SoftwareUserGuideV761-Clsc.pdf