Using Win2000 DHCP from Panther

[DiGiNas]

Hello,

We studied the use of our Win2000 DHCP server for our Panther Macs. But we
found a big problem, so we can't use it.

The normal behaviour - the PC - is the following one : if the Win2000 DHCP
server isn't available, but the gateway can be reach and the lease time is
not elapsed, then the last IP address should be used by the client. But
the Mac use a public IP address (169.xxx.xxx.xxx).

Is there a parameter to change on the Mac to get the normal behaviour ?

Regards

 

[William Smith]

Hello,

We studied the use of our Win2000 DHCP server for our Panther Macs. But we
found a big problem, so we can't use it.

The normal behaviour - the PC - is the following one : if the Win2000 DHCP
server isn't available, but the gateway can be reach and the lease time is
not elapsed, then the last IP address should be used by the client. But
the Mac use a public IP address (169.xxx.xxx.xxx).

Is there a parameter to change on the Mac to get the normal behaviour ?

Macs have been notorious for not retaining their leases if they can't
contact a DHCP server. They tend to drop the IP address instead of
holding the lease. To the best of my knowledge this hasn't changed in
Mac OS X. I don't know if BSD Unix adheres to the lease.

But how often is your DHCP server unavailable? This is a key component
in a network and should be as fault tolerant as possible. You can
configure a second DHCP server on your network to assign addresses in a
range outside of your other server's range. For example, Server1 would
lease addresses in the range of 1-126 and Server2 would lease addresses
n the range of 128-254. The DHCP client should contact its leasing
server for a renewal so constantly changing addresses shouldn't be an
issue.

Hope this helps! bill

 

[DiGiNas]

Hi William,

Thanks for your answer, I'll insvestigate the free BSD path.

Concerning your propostion to have two servers, the weekest element is not
the DHCP server but the network. In fact we have a big WAN with the
centeral DHCP server (lease time = 8 days).

Regards

 

[Rod Dorman]

...
Concerning your propostion to have two servers, the weekest element is not
the DHCP server but the network. In fact we have a big WAN with the
centeral DHCP server (lease time = 8 days).

Why aren't you running a DHCP server in each local segment?