Split scope DHCP

[edubri]

Hi All,

 

I've inherited a split scope DHCP from my predecessor, which looks like a complete nightmare to unpick, I basically need to decommission a DC and put a new one in place, at the moment DC2 handles some of the DHCP and so does DC1, looking at the ranges and there is so much there very hard to work out which DC is handling which range unless I go into it manually to see what's excluded on one compared to the other, There's at least 60 + scopes split across both.

 

Does anyone know of a quick way of moving this all over. Or a safe way of doing this, I discovered this over Easter holidays! only my 3rd week so I'm discovering many things that i want to fix!

 

I basically want failover DHCP across the 2 servers which I have seen much more than this

 

Thanks everyone

Edited April 9, 2024 by edubri

[TheHyperTechie]

If I understand correctly, you could just commission the new DC (3?) and then configure a DHCP failover from the DC you are removing. This should replicate the scopes across to the new DC. Then it may just be case of going in manually and sorting it out.

[Olliedawg]

You can use the export-dhcpserver & import-dhcpserver powershell commands to copy the config.. or as HyperTech said, im sure if you configure as a failover it replicates the config anyway?

[edubri]

Thanks guys, its going to be a summer job now basically need to make DHCP as failover on the DC's rather than split scope, on top of that I need to burn DC 1. Defo need to do some planning with the scopes checking with range is handled by which DHCP server

[Olliedawg]

Thanks guys, its going to be a summer job now basically need to make DHCP as failover on the DC's rather than split scope, on top of that I need to burn DC 1. Defo need to do some planning with the scopes checking with range is handled by which DHCP server

 

 

Definitely sounds like a summer job lol. Good luck with it

[psydii]

Top tip: Reduce the lease times asap (down to a few days initially), then when its a day or so before you are ready to make wider changes, reduce the leases to a matter of hours or minutes. Otherwise you might end up waiting weeks for the clients to pick up changes. Once you've got your new scopes up and running, extend the lease times back up to something reasonable.

 

Probably safest to change over the summer, but definitely reduce the lease times well ahead of the server/scope consolidation.

[Julian]

Is it split scope , or is it load balancing / reduancy.

 

Microsoft allow 2 DCHP servers to both supply DHCP to the same range, for the purposes of load balancing and reduancy. The easy way to spot this is to look at both DHCP servers, if the same computers are listed, with the same IP addresses, on both DHCP servers, it is load balacing.

 

This also make it easier to work on a server, without lossing DHCP services.