DHCP on Server 2003

[laserblazer]

I hope this is the right place to post this? I think I was the first person in our LEA to install Server 2003. The Viglen salesman said it was dead easy and the server would come all set up. After 5 days of the Xmas hols, I still didn't have it working and nobody could help. The Viglen tech support guy said "If you don't know how to install it you shouldn't have bought it!" Anyway, I was talking to the Winsuite Tech support guy who was very good and I asked his advice. After a few tests he said he thought it had been set up incorrectly and advised me to re-install the OS. This solved most problems but I never managed to get DHCP working. As all of our admin machines have static IPs as do the print servers etc., I used static IPs throughout. I've never had the time (or inclination) to try and remedy this. However, as we get more and more machines, it is becoming difficult to administer. I thought I would set up a second OS drive that I could play with out of school hours with a view to getting DHCP working.

So at long last my question. Can I set up a DHCP range that has static IPs within it? Or do I have to select a range that is currently not used?

[ChrisH]

You can either exclude the IP addresses that you are using already.

[kestrel1]

What internal IP range do you want to use?
How many machines are connected to your network?
You many find it easier to set your current machines to use DHCP, except for machines that really should stick with a static IP i.e. the print server.

[laserblazer]

The difficulty I have is that the local LEA set the admin server to 200 and the admin machines to 200 - 210. I started putting Print Servers etc that needed static IPs at 220-235. Teachers laptops go after that. The Curriculum server is currently at 100/101 (1GB 100 - 100M 101. I had so many connection problems with 1GB that I reverted to 100M) I want to try and fix the DHCP without having to change any of the client machines. I can do this by selecting a small DHCP range that isn't being used. I just wondered what would happen if I set a DHCP range that had static IPs in it. Does the DHCP server recognise machines with static IPs and keep a log of them?

I plan to switch the curriculum machines to DHCP as soon as I'm happy it is working ok.

[kestrel1]

No you need to tell the DHCP server not to use those IP addresses that are static, because if those machines are not on their IP address could be allocated to another machine via DHCP. You just need to set the static IP's as reserved.

[strawberry]

if you static address's are sequential you can exclude them from the scope ( the list of ip's that are dished out) or set the scope to start dishing out ip's after your list of static ip's end.

have a look at the video on dhcp at www.itidiots.com