Looking for DHCP advice

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Guys,

Looking for advice on how you go about (and how easy) it is to change the DHCP settings on a server.

The situation is that, at my office, we have limited network through a couple of switches and homeplugs, with one desktop acting as the gateway for the Internet. This is all done on static IP address in the 192.168.0.1 range

About a year ago my boss “acquired” another small firm that had one PC, 2 laptops and a small server, all connected via in a small office. All that equipment has now been set up in one room upstairs and the 2 employees of the small firm have a nice little network all on their own going, set up exactly as it had been set up for them by some company or other.

Now, there is a piece of software on the acquired server that my boss wants me to implement and this involves me connecting the two networks together and at first at though “yeah, shouldn’t be that hard”. After a quick look I have found that the acquired server is acting as a DHCP server on its little network but giving out a Class B Private IP address in the normal 172.16.0.1 range. This is obviously a bit of a problem when connecting the two networks.

My choices are to either change the settings on the server to give IP address in the normal 192.168 range and conform to what we already have or change the current setup to DHCP. I’m in favour of changing the current setup and move away from static IP addresses and allow the PCs to get their settings from the DHCP server.

Either way, it is going to involve me getting on the server (yay) and checking the current DHCP settings and amending them if necessary. The trouble is, I have never done it before and am looking for any tips you guys might have.

What I am looking for is where do I look for the DHCP settings (is it obvious) and what should I be aware of? Any thoughts greatly appreciated

 

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Hi,
You can gain access to the DHCP config on the server by going into the control panel and opening the Admin tools. Or Click Start/RUN and type MMC and then add the DHCP snap in to the console.

HTH
NB

 

Thanx NP, when I'm allowed I will have a look at that.

Is changing the DHCP settings pretty straigtforward? One of the things that will need to be changed is the default gateway - is that a simple thing to do with mmc?

 

Why would you change it? Just place a router between the two networks.
If you want both networks to become one physical network, just remove the DHCP server from the second network.

 

Thanks for that Tinus, unfortunately, common sense fixes is not really possible for me at the moment here.

The DHCP server has a programme on it that has to be used and a client has to be configured to access the programme. The two mini networks that we have, have been set up differently and it probably would be easier to bridge both networks, however, that would mean buying another piece of hardware and more expense, therefore that option is not available.

I am just looking at a peer to per network of seven computers and a server network of just three computers, so changing them around is not really that onerous. Besides, I want to change them as this is my first big chance to work with a server and do more detailed network set-up than I have done to date. One of the things I am thinking through before I get the time to set the networks up, is checking and possibly changing the DHCP settings on the server - I asked the question as it is something I have no experience of and wanted to be pre-armed before starting

 

I think this is the key, what instructions and notes do you have available to you on this, the people who set it up originally (ideally) should have documented all this, or be contactable to ask what is necessary.

It may be for example, that its just a login script, and ODBC is used at the client side to point at the servers host or ip address.

Also could you check out the software's support site for other information needed.

I dont see how software would need a certain ip range to be usable, but i suppose anything is possible.

*edit - just to clarify, the only pcs that should need a static ip are ones hosting software or databases, so set these up with an IP reservation - also it is likely that the fact this is a dhcp server has nothing to do with the programme hosted on it so you could allow your main dhcp server to allocate addresses for the small network, and have a dhcp relay agent setup*

 

you dont need to change anything on teh server, it does not matter what class the Ip adresses are if you are only implimenting it on a asmall scale.

just change yoru current network to aquire IP's from teh dhcp server and physically connect teh two networks into one and yoru done.

if you really want to play with the dhcp, log onto the server and go admin tools> dhcp

you'll need to delete the old scope and create a new one, its all pretty simple when you get there all nice lil wizards etc.

hope this helps

 

Yeah Manic, was what I was looking for. The small network with the server was set-up by another company that would charge us an arm and a leg just to answer simple questions (or so I'm led to believe) therefore, I need to get on to the server and see how the dhcp settings have been, well, set-up

If the current scope is sufficient I will leave it as it is, however, in case I need to change it I thought I'd do a bit of research first