# Roku DHCP???



## 1980ws (Mar 18, 2008)

This weekend took a Roku box to my daughter at college. Thought it would be easy to do. She has one Ethernet jack in her room, so i brought along a Netgear 5 port Ethernet switch. One port to her Mac, and another to the Roku. The Mac works fine and the Roku shows connected but when we try to launch a channel we get an error message saying basically check your connection. So we check the college IT site and it says devices need to be registered, so we supplied the MAC address and submitted a request. Here is the email we got back:
*"Blank University does not support the ROKU so you must use your own documentation to setup the ROKU. If it is to go directly on the network, it must be set for DHCP, because RESNET is a DHCP network only".*

Now I know I'm going to have my daughter call their tech, but before that happens, anyone know what this means? How do I set the Roku to DHCP? 
At home I tested it and it hooked right up with my wireless router & tested it wired with the ethernet switch, all good. Reset Button and then connect again to switch? Any help would be comforting, she's not real tech savvy beyound plugging things in.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Isn't Roku settings prevent you to set and check DHCP ? I recall. there is a button on remote


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## funhouse69 (Mar 26, 2007)

This doesn't make a lot of sense... If it connected to your home network did you set an IP Manually? If not then it should pick up an IP from their Network automatically.

Assuming you didn't set the IP manually there isn't any reason that it doesn't get an IP Address automatically unless they somehow limit how many IP's that can be assigned to say any one given room. If so just get some kind of a NAT router (which is pretty much all of them), have it get the IP then it can give out as many IPs behind it as needed.

Honestly I would put a router in no matter what mostly just for the protection of NAT. If you can add in a firewall that would be even better.


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## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

I used a ROKU here for a while and didn't need to do anything special for DHCP to work.


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## 1980ws (Mar 18, 2008)

It's a low priority for my student as she has so many things on her plate. I'm 4 hours away, just thought it's be nice for her to watch Netflix on a tv instead of her Mac. Thought it would be a simple set up. Thought about a router at first, then read about others using switches for extra devices at school. The University didn't say it couldn't be used, just that basically they aren't going to spend anytime helping. Looked at the setting on the Roku and doesn't look like anything can be configured. Was thinking of trying to reset, but again, pretty low priority. Thanks for all the replies.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

If you do asking about particular device's settings/features you must provide practical important info about the model. Perhaps you are not aware, but Roku manufactured many of them.


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

funhouse69 said:


> Honestly I would put a router in no matter what mostly just for the protection of NAT. If you can add in a firewall that would be even better.


As a network admin at a university that requires device registration, don't do that.

If they're using a NAC solution, the Roku should DHCP an address by default, but possibly be on their restricted network. Check the actual IP address when it's connected.

Either way, the default on the Roku is DHCP.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

P Smith said:


> If you do asking about particular device's settings/features you must provide practical important info about the model. Perhaps you are not aware, but Roku manufactured many of them.


Regardless how how many different models Roku produced, they all use DHCP.

If the WAN administration is refusing to add the Roku's MAC address to the router tables, a local router (with registered MAC address) will be required to hide the Roku behind.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

If it Roku 2 XD, I would post pictures to explain him ...


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