?Can I have two DHCP's on the same network?

[jdavis37]

This is a novell environment. A flat network. We have around 250 - 300 users with 10 Novell servers and 4 Windows 2000 servers. No domain setup. Our users login to novell. We have win95,win98, winxp and 2000's on the desktops. We want to receive our ip's from a dhcp server. I'm trying to build some type of redundacy. Can I have two DHCP servers? One was a scope range of 10.2.0.1 - 10.3.255.254/mask - 255.255.0.0 and the other with 10.4.0.1. - 10.5.255.254/mask - 255.255.0.0. How would both servers respond to the client? What's the over head on the network?

or

Should I just setup a secondary server with the same scope but just don't activate it. If the primary server fails. Activate the secondary server. How would this affect the clients? Would they have to re-boot to receive an ip from the secondary server. or just release/renew. Would this affect their work. Thanks

 

[ricpinto]

Best practice is to create same scope for the 2 DHCP but exclude half of it to be used as the offering other DCHP. The same with the other DHCP exlcude the other half to be the offering of the other DHCP.

Ex.
DHCP1 scope 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.254, exclude 192.168.0.128 - 192.168.0.254.
DHCP2 scope 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.254, exclude 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.127.

Did you get the idea?

 

[GlenJohnson]

ricpinto is correct. You want to do this with a superscope. Create the two scopes, then the superscope, and exlude the two scopes from each other, so they don't bang heads. Check out

http://www.microsoft.com/windows200...center/help/sag_DHCP_pro_CreateSuperscope.htm

Good luck.

Glen A. Johnson
"To fear the worst oft cures the worse."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616); English dramatist, poet.

Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884

 

[lullysing]

If i remember right, having 2, 3 or 10 000 DHCP servers is not a problem per se, since the client will get the IP from it's first ( usually network closest) response.

But like the other said, do have different IP ranges on each server so you don't start having doubles on the network.