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In my customer network, we have 2 DHCP servers. One is fully controlled by me and another by a different vendor. I want to make sure a set of devices (my devices) when connected, should get IP address from my DHCP server. What is the best possible way to handle this situation. Following are the info turned out from my research.

  1. I cannot make the other vendor's DHCP server as a relay server (because I am not very sure what his business logic does or any dependency on IPs etc.).

  2. Reservations can be done in my DHCP server to map a mac id to IP address, but I should block vendor's DHCP server from giving any DHCP offers to my devices.

  3. I can define a scope or subnet (not very sure about this technical term) to differentiate different pool of ip address to both DHCP servers. But again I am not very sure what his business logic does)

I am basically a programmer, my knowledge on network related area is very minimal.

2 Answers 2

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No matter what you do, you can't prevent the "other guy" from sending a DHCPOFFER to "your" clients.

Two un-coordinated DHCP servers on one network is not going to work in any kind of sane way.

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    Since he cannot, apparently, coordinate the DHCP servers, he should go with static IPs. Any other way and it will not be long before something really catastrophic happens.
    – dlyk1988
    Oct 29, 2013 at 12:43
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    Or allow his devices to be configured via the existing DHCP server. Instead of configuring their network for his device he should configure his device for their network.
    – joeqwerty
    Oct 29, 2013 at 14:57
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It is seriously disconcerting to have two developers working with software in such a fashion as to need to provide dhcp.

That being said it is possible to restructure the network with two independent broadcast domains via two subnets. That can be accomplished via two physical switches connected via a router or two vlans within a single switch.

You would.probably want a dedicated network person to take on a job like that.

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