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DNS/DHCP for multiple sites

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IdahoTech

IS-IT--Management
Sep 30, 2002
143
US
Hello,

Here is my question and I hope this is correct in the way I ask.

I have 4 schools and a Netwre 6.0 server in each school. I want to make another Netware Server that would strictly do DNS/DHCP and FTP. I want this server to be the main DNS/DHCP server in the district. Now comes the hard part. I want each school to have their own DHCP range. Can this be done?

I want the main server to be the boss of them I guess, but with each of the schools I want them to get their IP's from their servers and have them report back to the main server that I want to build.

Also I want to have the DNS throughout the district for redundancy. So if one goes out the others will kick in. Am I going over my head? We have one DHCP server right now and it is the High School Server. If our air lan goes down, some of our machines loose thier IP and do not keep it thus causing a big headache.

This is why I would like each school with their own range but still have a main server to manage it all.

Any help on this would be greatful, or if someone could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. School will let out in a few weeks and I want to get a jump start on it as soon as possible.

Thank you for any help anyone can give.

IdahoTech
'Only two things are infinite - the Universe and human Stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the Universe' Albert Einstein
 
It's simple, especially with NDS. DHCP information, including leases, is stored in the directory. So, install DHCP on each school's server and configure it. There isn't really a "boss" server with DHCP. There is a central console, which is probably what you're looking for.

DNS is even easier. Check out any references on DNS, this isn't Novell-specific. Create multiple DNS servers and have the DHCP servers hand out multiple resolver addresses to the workstations. DNS servers will always be running; they won't "kick in" like in a failover. If one is down, the workstation will talk to the other one. The nice thing about having DNS integrated with a directory is that you don't have to manually establish master/slave relationships.
 
Is there a TID or a document somewhere that explains this. I am still a little confused. So if I setup the main range on the HS server. Then at each school setup DHCP and make a range on that server that is in the range on the high school server and that is it?

These are 4 seperate servers. They are their own trees. I wish I had them in one but over a wireless lan it would be kinda slow.

So is that right what I put up there or am I off base. Does it make sense what I wrote? Let me know. Thanks for replying. I would like to get this up and going soon so I can have time to set up all the schools.



IdahoTech
'Only two things are infinite - the Universe and human Stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the Universe' Albert Einstein
 
I'm kinda confused as to what you want.. But you need to separate DHCP and DNS into two different 'projects'. Don't try too hard to do both at the same time, you may just confuse yourself.

If you're worried about your link between schools going down, then it would be better to use a DHCP server at each location. Just set it up in each tree for whatever the particular subnet is. So each tree will have 1 dhcp server and 1 subnet.

Once you have DHCP setup, you can easily change the DNS settings that are pushed out. For now, set up DHCP to push out your current DNS.. Once you're ready to install new DNS servers, you can change the settings in DHCP and be up and running in no time.




Marvin Huffaker, MCNE
 
I am sorry if this is a stupid question to follow, but how do I keep the schools from grabbing another schools ip's?

I have one subnet ( if you are refering to the subnet mask) for the whole district while having certain IP ranges for each school. Is that a better explanation for what I am looking for?

IdahoTech
'Only two things are infinite - the Universe and human Stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the Universe' Albert Einstein
 
Using the DNSDHCP tool you can setup your different DHCP ranges. Depending on your IP subnet class you can break down your subnets accordingly. Do you have a "B" or "C"?
(10.10.0.0. or 10.10.10.0) What is the masks third quad? (ie 252.0)

To keep BOOTP (Dynamic IP requests) from being answered by other DHCP services elsewhere, do not allow BOOTP forwarding on your router/switch, disable it. You will configure the IP range for each school to pass any DNS, SLP, or other entries needed to the workstations along with the IP address.
 
Ok well I do not think I can devulge to much when saying for our district we use 172.16.0.0 - 172.16.255.255 with a subnet mask of 255.0.0.0

And the DHCP server doles out addresses from there. One server one huge range. Again it works good but if the link goes down were dead in the water. Is there a DHCP/DNS book for Novell out there?

IdahoTech
'Only two things are infinite - the Universe and human Stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the Universe' Albert Einstein
 
Yeah, you should be able to split the sites into smaller ranges within the large subnet and control it from each location. No biggie.

I would recommend taking the DNS/DHCP management console and creating a test DHCP scope, creating some ranges in it, and getting a good idea of what you can and cannot do. You won't risk any network problem as long as you don't make it anything in the range of what your servers are currently dishing out. For example, in your case, don't create any test ranges in the 172 range. use 192.168.0 instead. or 10.0.x.x

Marvin

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE
 
Our network is 9 schools with a central Board location and we have a subnet at each site. 10.20.x.x, 10.30.x.x etc. I have 2 6.5 servers at each site and running DHCP on one of them that passes out a ip's and each site is a class B Range. Our sites are connected with Gig Fiber (just upgraded from leased T1's) Main internet connection is at Board location so all traffic from sites comes back through central to hit the internet. The DHCP on this one was pretty straight forward and real easy to manage.
 
OK I have downloaded and printed the Docs from novell and the program and I also will try the test scopes. Hopefully we can get the funding for Fibre in our district and I won't have to worry about this again, if we go wireless again then it is very much needed. Thanks for all your input. I do appreciate it a lot. Thanks Again

IdahoTech
'Only two things are infinite - the Universe and human Stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the Universe' Albert Einstein
 
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