how to find a free IP on our network ?

Hi

I am working in an environment where there is almost 200 nodes and most of these machines are configured to have manual ip configuration.

now we have a Partial list of the ips given out to these machines. besides there are also alot of Virtual Machines running using VirtualBox with bridged mode.


now the question is how do i find a free IP in the pool to be allocated to a new station/PC/VM/Printer ?

since some users have themselves assigned ips to VMs..

the process that i follow for now is take an IP that is not used according to our list.. (which sometimes comes out to be used .. due to above mentioned reasons )

then using nslookup i find if that is resolved .. but most of the time its not resolved (probably the machine is off at that time ?). so that gives me assuirty that it is free and available to be assigned to next machine..

if that ip is resolved i nslookup for the next ip (e.g 10.10.1.3 then 10.10.1.4 and so on ) until i find one ..


besides i ahve noted that even if the machine is on and on network nslookup wont resolve the ip ..

so help me out in figuring out how to find free IP.

(most of the machiens are windows 7 few are with linux .. redhat enterprise 6).


Thanks

I use the application "Angry ip scanner" to find all devices on a network.

xunile said:

I use the application "Angry ip scanner" to find all devices on a network.

will it do if pings and other services are blocked ?

how will it find if an ip is alive .. i mean how a pc will acknknowledge it ?

You should really be using DHCP to assign IP addresses. It was designed to solve the very problem you are having.

plumpf said:

xunile said:

I use the application "Angry ip scanner" to find all devices on a network.

will it do if pings and other services are blocked ?

how will it find if an ip is alive .. i mean how a pc will acknknowledge it ?

I'm not sure if it will work if pings are blocked, never tried it on a network where they were blocked.