DHCP handing out wrong router IP

[SimpleSi]

In one of my schools, i noticed that ipconfig /all on a workstation was showing me that although the ip was in the 10.86.7.1-255 range (subnet 255.255.255.0) the gateway address was set to 10.86.8.1 (co-incidently another school of mine !) instead of 10.86.7.1. :!:

 

It was set wrong in DHCP Setup.

 

Now what I want to know - how come everything seemed to be working and nothing had a problem with this

 

BTW It wasn't me that setup the DHCP Server

 

regards

 

Simon

[Geoff]

Everything you access is on the same subnet. You never have to traverse the gateway for anything.

[SimpleSi]

Yes - thats what I think - its just not used by anything

 

But something must need it (or why bother having it included :?: )

 

regards

 

Simon

 

PS And why do network printers and wireless APs have gateway address setting as well - do they do anything?

[ajbritton]

Assuming all your services are on the same subnet, then you may never need the gateway (as Geoff says).

 

The most obvious time that you would need to connect off-subnet would be Internet access, but if you have a proxy server on your local subnet, then that would be ruled out also.