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I'm trying to assign my laptop the same IP address every time it connects to my home LAN (192.168.1.52). I log in to my router (Netgear), go to LAN Settings and Add a new IP reservation.

I enter my MAC address, obtained from ifconfig and matching the list of available MAC addresses in the table above this page's form (so I am confident its the correct MAC), and give it a desired IP address of 192.168.1.52. I copy-n-paste the device name from the table above into the Machine name field on the form. I click submit.

I then log out of the router, disconnect from the wireless LAN and then reconnect.

I run ifconfig again - DHCP has kicked in and my IP address is 192.168.1.5.

What am I doing wrong here?!? Thanks in advance!

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Also make sure you didn't accidentally put your wired Ethernet interface's MAC address. You also may need to restart your router for that to take effect. – ultrasawblade Aug 29 '12 at 23:11
No I'm just a huge dummy and @ultrasawblade was correct. I didn't restrict my DHCP pool from 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.51 (the first 50), so it looks like DHCP was overriding the IP reservation. Once I added this restriction, applied changes and reconnected to the LAN, I'm now given 192.168.1.52 like I wanted. Thanks! – pnongrata Aug 29 '12 at 23:15
I have an (older) Netgear modem/router that I just tested, and it simply does not seem to care if the reserved address is in or out of the DHCP pool of dynamic addresses. But a 1 year old Netgear wireless router will not even accept a reserved address that is outside the DHCP range. So your experience makes a 3rd variation of how Netgear products handle reserved IP addresses. – sawdust Aug 29 '12 at 23:56

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