Configure DHCP Scopes in Server 2016

1.    From Server Manager, select DHCP from the Tools menu icon in the top right of the Server Manager screen.

 2.    Expand your domain you wish to add scopes to. Once it is expanded, then expand the IPv4 section.

3.    Once expanded, identify and make sure your scope will not conflict with another. Once you have verified the scopes, right click on the IPv4 server icon and select New Scope.

 4.    On the pop-up, select next to continue with the scope creation.

5.    Next, you can type in the name of your scope, and then a good description of what the scope is for.

6.    On the next screen, type in your network range, we will use an 8.8.8.0 network for our testing. Type in the start of the network range, to the end of the network range you wish to work on. Next, put in your subnet masking for the network range.

7.    The next screen you put in your address you do not want the DHCP scope range to give out. Say you have 20-30 servers on your network and you want to manually assign/reserve addresses for these, you can block out a range of IPs this way. Like in the below example, IPs 1-50, and 200-254, will not be issued out.

8.    The next screen is your DHCP lease duration. This only means systems utilizing DHCP will only have that DHCP IP lease for this duration. The IP addresses given out in this scope will expire after 8 hours. After the 8 hour mark, systems will request a new lease time for this one, or request another IP address altogether. This will require some tweaking and does depend on the needs of your systems.

9.    The next screen you can select if you want to go ahead and configure basic options for the scopes. This includes default gateways, DNS servers, and WINS settings. We will select yes here.

10.    Next, is the Router address, or Default Gateway for the scope to go out of to talk to other networks. You can list multiple ones, or just one. List whatever your systems require. Click on add to add each one to the list, and then click Next to continue.

11.    On the next screen, you will put in your DNS settings. You can type in your domain, and also the DNS servers you want to be issued to the scope. Click next once you are done.

12.    Next, if you have WINS servers for converting NetBIOS names to IP addresses, you can list them here. For this test scope, we will not set this up, so just click next.

13.    Finally, you can choose whether to activate the scope now or keep it deactivated temporarily for an ASI window or when you are ready to move the relays/IP helpers in your Cisco/switching equipment.

14.    Finally, verify if the scope shows up in your IPv4 scopes. You can right click to activate and deactivate freely too if you are waiting activation.

Configure DHCP Failover for Windows Server 2016

1.    From Server Manager, click on the Tools menu in the top right corner, then click on DHCP to bring up the DHCP configuration console.

2.    From the DHCP console, expand your domain you wish to work on. After you expand your domain, right click on the scope you wish to configure failover for and click Configure Failover.

3.    On the pop-up, verify your scope is selected, then click Next.

4.    On the next screen, put in your secondary server on your network you want to failover to. The one requirement would be to already have DHCP service installed on the secondary server. Once you put in your secondary server (or select an existing server already configured with DHCP Failover settings), click on Next.

 5.    On the failover configuration screen, you can verify your server information on the top, then you can start making configuration settings. After you are done with the following options, click Next.
    a.    Maximum Client Lead Time: This is kind of finicky. I have read it is recommended to keep default for you put it too low, performance problems will occur, and if you put it too high, it could delay/cause issues for failover.
    b.    Mode: This is just selecting whether you want Hot standby or load balancing. For this setup, we will select the Hot standby option.
        i.    Hot Standby Configuration Role of Partner Server: Select Standby for the secondary server, or you can swap roles for it to be the Active server.
        ii.    Addresses reserved for standby server: This setting allots a percentage of addresses for the standby server so it has addresses available during a failover to issue out.
    c.    State Switchover Interval: This is how long until the server will try switching back over from what I understand. I will update accordingly after more testing.
    d.    Enable Message Authentication: This is the ability to use a Shared Secret for the servers to sync together.

6.    Finally, verify your information on the last screen and click Finish.

7.    Verify the next pop-up has no errors. If there are errors, go back troubleshoot and reconfigure accordingly.

8.    Finally, you still need to verify the secondary server sees the failover options and has added the new scope. Navigate to the secondary server, open the DHCP configuration screen and you might have to do a refresh if you do not see the scope. Click on Action in the top menu on the left, then click on refresh to perform this action.

9.    Finally, you should see your new failover scope pop-up in the new IPv4 drop down.

Creating DNS Records Windows Server 2016

A reverse lookup zone will have to be created first (if not already). This allows your DNS to fully resolve your DNS names through IP and by FQDN. This will allow your DNS A records to fully create the A record and the PTR (pointer) record for your entries.

Installing Active Directory Domain Services Role and Promote to Domain Controller, Server 2016