So I'm somewhat confused on what to do here. We have internet coming through fiber optics to our switch, and the switch is connected to a newly installed Windows 2008 Server. So our setup is Router > HP Switch > Server...How can I configure the Server to act as a DHCP / DNS server? Also will this setup work for a domain and active directory?
Sorry for the delay.
Yes, the AD is
THE solution you need. The AD will provide DHCP, DNS services to the domain.
Background: the clients on the lan use DHCP broadcasting to find the DHCP server (ie lan address x.x.x.255 on port 68).
Any device/system that can provide the service then answers the client and the protocol then provides the IP & DNS addresses to that client.
Problem: That router can respond and you want your AD DHCP to be the respondant.
Solutions: Disable the router's DHCP. This means you will hand configure static ip's and dns's for the AD (which is necessary anyway) but could also be necessary for some other devices/system.
A) fixed addresses (ie static) are always recommended for servers
(eg exchange server, IIS, SqlServer, DHCP and DNS).
B) Client systems are easiest to control using DHCP
C) the typical setup that router at x.x.x.1and addresses 0, 255 can't be used by systems, so that leaves available addresses 2->254. Map all static systems into a range at the top or bottom of the available list (eg statics being 240-254) and then set your AD DHCP range to 2-239. Now you can hand configure all those servers to be within the 240-254 range. Unless your LAN is heavily loaded (ie 253 systems),
the 240-254 reservation allows you to add static servers without redoing the whole LAN.
