DCHP Relay Agent settings in Windows 2000 Server

After you install and configure DHCP Relay Agent on your Windows 2000 Server, you might also want to optimize it for your network environment.

First you need to find the listing of available DHCP server. Right-click DHCP Relay Agent in the console and select Properties. This list contains all DHCP servers that will receive DHCP packets from the DHCP Relay Agent.

Other settings are located on the Properties window of each interface. Right-click the interface under DHCP Relay Agent in the console and select Properties. The window displaying the interface’s properties will be displayed, where you’ll be able to configure three options.

The first is the Relay DHCP Traffic setting. This setting basically allows you to enable or disable the DHCP Relay Agent on a given interface.

Next is the Hop-Count Threshold setting, which will let you specify the maximum number of DHCP Relay Agents between this Relay Agent and the DHCP server.

The last setting you can configure is the Boot Threshold (Seconds) setting. Here you can specify how long DHCP Relay Agent will wait before forwarding the DHCP messages to the DCHP server.

Related Post:

How to Install the DHCP Relay Agent in Windows 2000 Server?
How To Install and Configure a DHCP Server in a Workgroup in Windows Server 2003

Source: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=189&tag=rbxccnbtr1

Windows 2000 Server DHCP options

A client uses a local broadcast address when it first tries to contact a Windows 2000 Server DHCP server, since this is the only way to get in touch with a DHCP server without having an IP address. Problems can develop, however, when you have multiple network segments separated by routers.

Routers typically don’t pass DHCP traffic. If you have such routers and don’t have a DHCP server on every segment, your DHCP clients will get the TCP/IP configuration from any DHCP server.

To prevent this from happening, you can choose from three options. The first is to install a DHCP server on every network segment. This requires a DCHP machine and additional configuration on the server. If you have several network segments, this option doesn’t make sense. A second solution is to enable BOOTP/DHCP message traffic on your RFC 1542-compliant routers.

If you don’t have such routers or a DHCP serveron every network segment, your only option is to install DHCP Relay Agent on every network segment. DHCP Relay Agent will listen for DHCP traffic on the local network and forward these packets to a real DHCP server on another network segment.

Source:http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=186&tag=rbxccnbtr1

How to Install the DHCP Relay Agent in Windows 2000 Server?

The DHCP Relay Agent is a special service running on Windows 2000 Server that listens to the DHCP traffic on a local network. When it hears something, it waits for a configured amount of time. This configured time allows DHCP servers from the local network to answer a client discover packet.

If no DHCP server answers, the DHCP Relay Agent will forward the DHCP traffic to a configured DHCP server on some other network segment. When a DHCP server answers the query, the query is then sent to the DHCP Relay Agent, which then forwards the packets to the local network where the client resides.

You can configure your Windows 2000 Server as a DHCP Relay Agent from the Routing And Remote Access Service console.

In this console:

Open IP Routing, right-click General, and select New Routing Protocol. Select DHCP Relay Agent and click OK. This will install the agent.

From: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=187&tag=rbxccnbtr1