DHCP necessary for VPN on Win 2003 Server?

[Guest]

In going through Dell's OpenManage wizard for setting up
a VPN on Windows 2003 Server, it insists that it is
necessary to set up DHCP first. However, at the
following URL, I read the text below it:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?
url=/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/deploy/confeat/
vpndeplr.asp

The VPN server must have a manual TCP/IP configuration
for its Internet interface. While technically possible,
it is not recommended that the VPN server be a DHCP
client for its intranet interface(s). Due to the routing
requirements of the VPN server, manually configure an IP
address, subnet mask, DNS server(s), and WINS server(s),
but do not configure a default gateway.

I waded through a ton of online articles, and that and
something I read somewhere else suggested that it's not
necessary to have DHCP set up. The reason this is so
important to me is that I just have one new server, and I
want it to handle my few internal machines as well as
allow VPN connections from the outside, and I screwed up
my server so badly that I had to reload the OS, so since
I'm not a sys admin by trade, I'd rather not have to set
up DHCP if the server can do without it...

Also, the online step-by-step guides at MS and other
places are too elaborate...I'm not doing the extra
authentication stuff, and I can't find a tutorial that
addresses the problem I had: I set everything up, and it
seemed to think the DHCP and VPN stuff was working fine,
but a simple ipconfig /all from the command line said
that DHCP was still not enabled, and I couldn't get an
answer when trying to VPN in from the outside. I just
want to know how to get DHCP and VPN stuff to play nicely
together on Win 2003 Server, and the tutorials I found
glossed over that as if it shouldn't ever be a problem...

 

[Marc Reynolds [MSFT]]

For Windows Server 2003-based VPN servers, the IP addresses
assigned to VPN clients are obtained through DHCP by default. You can
also
configure a static IP address pool. The VPN server must also be
configured with
name resolution servers, typically DNS and WINS server addresses, to
assign to
the VPN client during IPCP negotiation.

See 323441 HOW TO: Install and Configure a Virtual Private Network Server in
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=323441

--

Thanks,
Marc Reynolds
Microsoft Technical Support

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Bill Grant]

DHCP is optional. If you are not using it already, you don't need to
set it up just for RRAS.

The bits you quote refer to different things. It is not a good idea to
allow a server to get its basic LAN setup from DHCP. A server should have a
fixed IP, and the safest way is to configure it manually.

When you enable RRAS as a remote access server (RAS or VPN), it must
have a pool of addresses which it can allocate to users as required. By
default it leases a batch of IPs from DHCP for this purpose. If you are not
running DHCP you can manually add a statc pool of addresses for RRAS to use
for this.