
To get this information, type networksetup -listallhardwareports First off, know the name of your device on the network.If you’re using macOS, here are the broad steps. Remember, the DHCP lease time can be less or more than 24 hours, depending on your network configuration. The difference between the two values will give you the default DHCP lease time.Look for “Lease Obtained” and “Lease Expired”.This will bring up all the details of your IP address.The first step is to know what is the default DHCP lease time on your network. Remember, you need administrative access to your network to change this lease time. Moving on, let’s see how you can change the DHCP lease time. The idea is that these connections are temporary, so freeing up the connections after a defined time will make your network faster and more efficient. The standard DHCP lease time is 24 hours, but you can change it to meet your network’s needs.įor example, if you’re setting up a lease time on your restaurant’s WiFi network, you can restrict it to an hour or two while a guest office network could have about 12 hours. This is the fundamental advantage of having a DHCP lease time. But with the DHCP lease time, computer B’s IP address would have expired, and this can now be allocated to computer C or any other device on the network. Now, if the IP address is static, only computer B would be able to use a particular IP address, which is a waste of resources. The next day, you decide to use computer C instead of computer B. There are two devices on a network, computer A and computer B, and a DHCP server assigns an IP address to both the devices. Let’s take an example to better understand this scenario. The biggest advantage with DHCP lease time is that the same IP address is not stuck to a device forever and is available for other devices, too when needed. Unless otherwise mentioned, the DHCP server assumes that all IP addresses are temporary and expire after some time. This DHCP-assigned IP address is not permanent and expires in about 24 hours. But like being a renter, you don’t own this DHCP-assigned IP address for all time, you only lease it. DHCP is a network server that dynamically assigns IP addresses to every device on the network, so a device can communicate with other IP devices and networks. How are these IP addresses created? Who assigns it to denote a specific device or network? How long does this IP address last? If the IP address is the heart, then the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, or DHCP server, is part of the circulation system. It is similar to a postal address that delivers a letter/package to a particular real estate property. Well, at the heart of it all, as many know, is the IP address, a unique identifier number that makes it easy to identify your device from any part of the world. Have you ever wondered how communication happens over the Internet? Do you know how messages are delivered to your computer and not to others? Even the most seasoned IT pros may not know the ins-and-outs of how this works.
