That's how I normally do it. I prefer static IPs but some systems don't respond well, so I have them use DHCP...the rest are static and outside the DHCP pool.

...or make a DHCP reservation for it so even if it uses DHCP it will always get the same IP.

Well, after much fiddling and begging *nix using friends to SSH to me, I can confirm it works. Just. I still can't reserve an IP for it, as the router doesn't like the hostname. It comes up with 'unknown' or a random string of characters, when it should be 'lovro'. I'm going to wipe it and put debian on anyway, fedora is unstable on this box. Maybe that will help *rolls eyes*

Oh, and I can't SSH from school, as I can't ping my IP (read from the dyndns site, school blocks my DNS), and nmap tells me it's a switch. Which means I can't get through their firewall somewhere. I'm going to keep trying, try a few different techniques.

Thanks to all who have helped, it's all been very informative and I know what to do in a few different situations now.

It should be reserving the IP address using your servers MAC address. If it also wants a hostname, you can put anything in there it will not affect the port forwarding.

Can you telnet to it? Testing via ping is iffy since ICMP may be blocked:

telnet myhomeip 22*

* replace '22' with whatever port you're using for the SSH service

Nmap may also be blocked, especially if you're scanning against the SSH port, which is more than likely set to port 22.

I would do that, except to enable external telnet on the router it wants me to give it an IP address? I have decided this router is a POS, and will try my hardest to kill it so we can upgrade to a nice DD-WRT one.

Try telling the router that... It gives it a different IP every time no matter what I try.