3com 4400 FX User Manual

Page of 90
Setting Up Overview
37
CAUTION: To protect your Switch from unauthorized access, you must 
change all three default passwords as soon as possible, even if you do not 
intend to actively manage your Switch. For more information on default 
users and changing default passwords, see 
“Default Users and 
Passwords” on page 55
.
IP Configuration
You can use one of the following methods to allocate IP information to 
your Switch (essential if you wish to manage your Switch across the 
network).
Manual IP Configuration 
You can choose to configure the IP information yourself. The Switch 
remembers the information that you enter until you change it again or 
set the configuration method to Automatic.
You should use the Manual IP configuration method if:
you do not have a DHCP or BootP server on your network, or
you want to remove the risk of the IP address ever changing, or
your DHCP or BootP server does not allow you to allocate static IP 
addresses. (Static IP addresses are necessary to ensure that the Switch 
is always allocated the same IP information.)
For most installations, 3Com recommends that you configure the Switch 
IP information manually. This makes management simpler and more 
reliable as it is not dependent on a DHCP or BootP server, and eliminates 
the risk of the IP address changing.
If you wish to manually enter IP information for your Switch, work 
through the “Manually Configuring IP Information” section on page 39.
Automatic IP Configuration
By default the Switch tries to configure itself with IP information without 
requesting user intervention. It tries to obtain an IP address from a DHCP 
or BootP server on the network.
If neither server is found, the Switch will configure itself with its default IP 
address 169.254.100.100 if it is operating in a standalone mode, and/or 
no other Switches on the network have this IP address. If this default IP 
address is already in use on the network then the Switch detects this and 
configures itself with an IP address in the range 169.254.1.0 to 
169.254.254.255. 
DUA1720-3AAA07.book  Page 37  Wednesday, March 17, 2004  1:14 PM