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[fordem]

Unfortunately not all networking kit makes that easy. Here in the UK Virgin Media have started supplying their horribly misnamed SuperHub, which acts as both a cable modem and a router/switch but it only allows MAC reservations within the DHCP lease pool (and if you try to cheat by shrinking the pool once you've defined the reservations, it kindly deletes them all for you). I prefer to set up all devices within my home network with static IPs using MAC reservation and then to prevent the dynamic addresses from accessing the outside world, so this particular piece of junk aggravated me greatly.

It sounds like you're confusing a static address and a DHCP reservation - they are similar in concept, but different in reality.  DHCP reservations will only work in the presence of the DHCP server on which they were set, static addresses, which have to be set at the device, will work even when there is no DHCP server.  Think about it this way - if the address is obtained using Dynamic Host Control Protocol, then it's a dynamic address, not static

Whilst I am aware that some devices allow you to set DHCP reservations outside of the lease pool, those devices are the ones that are not working correctly as as no DHCP server should be able to lease an address that's not within the pool, so if what you say, is correct, the Virgin Media  SuperHub works properly.

"Shrink" the lease pool, set your DHCP reservations within the lease pool, set your static addresses at the device, outside of the lease pool, and all will be well

[Steve Pitts]

Would it be possible to to switch off everything except the cable modem and use a separate switcg and the DNS-323 as the DHCP server?

I've no experience with using the DNS323 as a DHCP server, but I see no reason why switching the SuperHub to modem only mode and using the NAS to provide DHCP wouldn't work (although I cannot imagine that the DHCP in the DNS323 is going to be any better than the SuperHub, and is certainly less flexible). However, I believe that doing so also disables the wireless so that may not be a workable approach (the setting is designed to let folk with an existing router carry on doing so if they prefer) but cannot currently get into the web interface of the SuperHub to confirm what it says.

Also is there a technical manual available for SuperHub?

Not that I've been able to find. There are various bits scattered about the VM help pages, and this page:

Virgin Media Super Hub user guide

has a link to a PDF document that is basically just a quick-start guide to getting the unit up and running.

[ivan]

Thanks for that information Steve.

It sounds as if they can use their DI-624 in the same configuration that they had before which is good news and should solve their problems.

[fordem]

The DHCP server in the DNS-323 is a very basic DHCP server, only capable of leasing addresses - it does not offer DHCP scope options, such as default gateway or DNS server entries, so it is only suitable for the most basic of "stand alone" (ie, not inter connected) networks.