Mastering Windows Server® 2008 Networking Foundations

Chapter 14. Automatic IP Setup: DHCP Essentials

Whether you're hooking up a two-computer intranet in your house to share an Internet connection or weaving a world-spanning Internet, you've got to solve two basic problems. First, every system on the network needs a unique IP address and requires configuration — it needs to know the address of its default router, what its domain name is, where the nearest DNS server is, and the like. Microsoft OS-based networks that are TCP/IP-based need the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to accomplish IP configuration.

This chapter will cover DHCP in an IPv4 environment. Server 2008 introduces some new DHCP topics that will be covered in the more advanced books in the Mastering Windows Server 2008 series.

DHCP:Automatic TCP/IP Configuration

In Chapter 10, you learned how to set up IP on a Server 2008 system. Now ask yourself, "Do I really want to walk around to 3,000 workstations and do this by hand?" Auuugghhhh! Oops, sorry, what I really meant was, "Of course not. "Who wants to have to remember which IP address you gave to that machine so you don't put the address on this machine? Or how'd you like to get a phone call every time some visiting dignitary needs an IP address for his laptop? No thanks. DHCP will greatly simplify the task, so let's see how to set it up.

By the way, this discussion assumes you've already read Chapter 10; don't think if you decided from the start to go with DHCP that you could jump in here without reading that ...