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We want to set up a connection to several servers at a customer site and are requested to deal with potentially changing IP addresses as they don't want to keep track of the MAC addresses used, with some quick research I came up with the following options:

  • Broadcast: Using some discovery mechanism like mDNS whereas UDP broadcasts would have to be routed to all relevant subnets
  • Centralized: Having one Dynamic DNS server with a static IP which all servers register to and is known (could also be via some provider over the internet, but undesirable)
  • Hybrid: Having one bootstrap node to establish a virtual network (e.g. meshbird) and then use some discovery mechanism
  • (highly undesirable) Doing a "bruteforce" IP range lookup and then checking if relevant ports are open

Are there any other options I am not aware of? If broadcasting doesn't work, which method would be the quickest and most reliable to have a simple "Identifier -> IP" mapping in a local network without access to the router?

Maximilian Schulz
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DNS. Every network should have name services, sometimes bundled or integrated as DNS, DHCP, and IPAM (DDI).

John Mahowald
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  • As I understand it, this doesn't really answer my question as you need to keep track of the mac addresses for the DHCP server to keep track of the servers? That's why I mentioned alternative approaches with for example DDNS. If the question is unclear, I would appreciate help to formulate it better :-) – Maximilian Schulz Jun 09 '19 at 15:47
  • Not necessarily. Names can come from the DHCP host option, ask a DDI vendor. Or perhaps they are already using an automatically updated DNS, such as AD DS integrated. If they have no DNS and no static addressing, I don't know how their servers are discoverable. – John Mahowald Jun 09 '19 at 16:06