Connecting to the Internal Web Site

This applies to all Control Solutions web server products, such as AddMe III i.CanDoIt, i.Board, Babel Buster SP, etc. Your web server device is shipped with a static IP address of 10.0.0.101. You will most likely want to change that address. You cannot connect multiple devices all set to the same address, you must change at least most of them. The devices do not default to DHCP because not everyone has DHCP set up, and if you do, you still need access to the DHCP server to see what address the device ended up at.

Step 1: Physical Connection

Connect the device to your PC directly using a cross over cable, or connect through an unmanaged switch or hub. Unless you know for sure what you are doing, you should temporarily disconnect your PC from any office LAN. If you are using a simple cable or DSL router typical of a home or small office setup, your network is probably on the 192.168.1.x domain as it is in the example below. You can usually stay safely connected to the home or small office LAN. Just plug your web server device into any available port on the router or attached switch or hub.

Once connected, and provided the Control Solutions device is powered up, you should see the link LED light up verifying that you have a connection between the device and your PC. If you do not get a link indication, you need to resolve the connection problem before proceeding.

The link LED is a green LED on Babel Buster SP, and yellow LED on all other Control Solutions Ethernet devices. The link LED should remain on solid as long as a connection is present. The other LED right by the RJ-45 jack will flash when network traffic is detected. (Note that all of the web based devices require about a minute to boot up. The link LED should come on almost immediately after power-up. The activity LED may remain on solid for a while during bootup.)

Step 2: Add Route Connection to PC

Unless your PC is already on the 10.0.0.0 domain, you will need to add a temporary route to your PC's routing table. You do not need to make any changes inside your cable or DSL router. You do not need to add routes to the router, you only need to add a route to the routing table in your PC. (Routes added to your router will attempt to connect between local devices and the outside world. For now, you are only trying to connect devices locally.)

Windows: Open a command prompt, and use the following command:
    route add 10.0.0.0 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.100
This example assumes your PC is at IP address 192.168.1.100. You need to substitute your correct IP address, which you can find by typing "ipconfig" at the command prompt.

Linux: Open a terminal window, and use the following command:
    route add -net 10.0.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.1.100
This example also assumes your PC is at IP address 192.168.1.100. If not, substitute the correct IP address.

Once successful, you should be able to ping 10.0.0.101 (just type "ping 10.0.0.101" at the command prompt). If the route did not work, and you are using Windows 2000, you may need to temporarily change your PC to be at a static IP address on the 10.0.0.0 domain at an address other than 10.0.0.101 (e.g., use 10.0.0.99 for the PC).

Step 3: Browse to Network Page

Open a browser, and browse to http://10.0.0.101 (or http://10.0.0.101/index.html). You should see a green graphic and the Control Solutions logo at the top of the page. Click on the System tab, then Setup, then Network. The top of that page will look like the example below. When you click the System tab, you will be asked for a user name and password. You must log in as "root" to change the IP address. The default password for root is "buster". (The other default user the server ships with is "system" with password "admin".)

You may now enter the desired IP address. If you will be sending email or doing something that requires reaching the outside world, you need a valid gateway IP address. If not, it can be left at 0.0.0.0. Click Change IP when you want to save the IP address shown.

If you want to use DHCP, set the IP address to 255.255.255.255, and click Change IP. Once you restart, the device will be hung up attempting to start up the TCP/IP stack until it finds a DHCP server. Do not use this setting if you do not have access to a DHCP server. You will effectively lock yourself out until you do connect to a DHCP server once you selected that option.

After saving your IP address setting, you need to restart the server to make that address take effect. You can power cycle it. You can also go to the Config File tab, click the "confirm" check box, and click the Restart button. One other thing we highly recommend while changing the IP address for the first time is to change the root password. Click the User tab and update the root password. You can also change the "system" user password at the same time. Remember, if you found this page, a lot of other people will, too. You might as well consider the root password public until you change it.