So thanks to all your help on the forum i have decided to get the HD HomeRun (HDHR) for my first HTPC build. I have a few questions about it.

To give a quick recap i have TWC/brighthouse cable, and a home wireless g network

The router is upstairs and the tv/cable are downstairs, which is where the htpc will be going too.

I have looked all over the web/forums and to my knowledge

The last post to my issue was this:

"If the HDHR is only going to feed your HTPC, then it doesn't need to be connected to the rest of your home or the Internet. So you can put the HDHR down next to your HTPC and connect them with Cat 5 Ethernet, and use a separate wireless card in the HTPC to talk to your upstairs router and retrieve listings from the Internet.

If the HDHR supports static IP configuration then you only need a crossover cable to connect them. If the HDHR requires DHCP, then you can either (a) run a DCHP server on the HTPC or (b) buy a cheap router to put between the HDHR and HTPC."

now that the background is out of the way here are my questions:

Correct me if i am wrong but to my knowledge and via looking around on the web the HDHR does not support a static IP.

a. what is a easy DHCP server/program to setup on linux? If i do this do i need 2 NIC's or will i just have to run this server and then going from HDHR directly to the ethernet port on the HTPC will work?


b. if i go the method to put a cheep router between them does that router need to be connected to the internet in any way or would it just need a power. How would the connections work HDHR to one of the output ports and another output port to the HTPC ??

Thanks again for all your help





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the hdhr does not support a static ip address. you have two choices:

1. buy another router to supply the address

or

2. run a dchp server on your htpc.

since you are running linux, option b would be my choice (plus it's free).

you didn't say which distro you are using. I usually have good luck searching for help with things like this with google. in this case, try "ububtu dchpd". replace ubuntu with whatever distro you have. a dchp server is probably just an apt-get install plus some config.


Derek

I *think* the newer software releases for the HDHR (i.e., anything since 20 June) has a DHCP server capability included. (http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/downloads/libhdhomerun_changelog)

To date, I've only used my HDHR on the Windows side and I'm not using this DHCP capability, so I cannot offer anything more than a pointer to the SiliconDust forums.

-SUO

You will need two network interfaces in the HTPC.
a) an ethernet NIC to attach your HTPC to the HDHR
b) a wireless NI for your HTPC to access the Internet
These will have to be configured as different subnets. So if your home network is already set up as 192.168.1.xxx, you could set up the subnet for the HDHR as 192.168.2.xxx

This link explains how to setup a DHCP server under Linux/
http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch08_:_Configuring_the_DHCP_Server
When you configure this DHCP server, make sure it is only serving the network interface that goes to the HDHR.

If you decide to go the other way and use a separate router for the HDHR, it only needs to be connected to the HDHR and your HTPC, and to have power.

FYI,

I am running Ubuntu, HDHR and two NICs.

ETH0 is connected to the world through my router, and my HDHR is the only thing conneced to my HDHR. I had to install a DHCP server to get the HDHR to work.

However, when using MythTV, I cannot get Myth to see the HDHR card, although VLC sees it just fine.

Jim