Faculty and staff may notice ITS staff visiting your office computers in a systematic way building by building. This is part of our effort to move faculty and staff machines from static IP addresses to a system of dynamic IP addresses (DHCP). This will streamline new requests for network connections and help us to better manage our local network. You may notice a temporary disruption in your connection to the internet and to any network printers as we proceed through your building. We appreciate your patience with the process. 

A tentative schedule by building follows.  Please note that if you use Remote Desktop from home to directly access your office machine, you may want to refer to the instructions below in order to successfully connect after this change.

As of November 30th, the following buildings have already been converted:

• Bartoo Hall
• Brown Hall
• Bruner Hall
• Bush Stadium/Quillen Field
• Derryberry Hall
• Facilities/Business Services Building
• Foster Hall
• Foundry
• Health and Physical Education Building
• Henderson Hall
• Hooper Eblen Center
• Johnson Hall
• Kitrell Hall
• Lewis Hall
• Mathews / Daniels Hall
• Old Maintenance Building
• Pennebaker Hall
• ROTC
• South Hall
• T. J. Farr Building
• Tucker Stadium West
• University Services Building

In progress:

• Angelo and Jennette Volpe Library and Media Center
• Clement Hall
• Prescott Hall
• Roaden University Center (scheduled for December 10th)

Other buildings to be converted include:

• Bryan Fine Arts
• Jere Whitson Hall

Please contact JEBoyd@tntech.edu for additional information on the planned schedule.

Using Remote Desktop

To determine what your new IP address is, after your building has been converted to DHCP, please follow the steps below.

Instructions for Windows XP

• Click on the Start menu button
• Look in the side panel for the link to  Run... and click on it.
• In the popup window, type:   cmd
• Click OK.
• In the window, at the greater than (>) prompt, type: 
  ipconfig
• Write down the  IP address
  (four numbers separated by periods that look something like 149.149.xxx.xxx)
• Type exit at the prompt (>) to close the command window.

Use your new IP address to logon via Remote Desktop.

Contact Microsupport@tntech.edu or your college contact for additional help with this topic.

Technical Details

1. A range of statics IP addresses will be reserved in each building for network printers and servers.  Please contact LBates@tntech.edu if you have a server which needs a static IP address.  The network printers will be handled as we work through each building.
2. Every time a computer system is turned on, it will attempt to request the same IP address from DHCP that it held the day before.
3. DHCP will hand the same address to each system as long as it is available.  For the IP address to not be available:
   1. The range of IPs for that building would have to be exhausted.  ITS is building in ample room for growth within each building, so this should not happen for the foreseeable future.
   2. If the IP addresses are completely handed out, the server will attempt to eliminate leases in order to satisfy the request for an address.
   3. Leases are set to 60 days, so a machine will have to be turned off or disconnected from the network for 60 consecutive days for the lease to expire.
4. If faculty and staff are attempting to use remote desktop from home, they should connect via their IP address (not machine name) in order to ensure there is no conflict between DNS.