Question : DHCP service stopping on Domain Controller, even though both DHCP servers authorised.

Hi there,

We have 2 servers - the DC running SBS 2003 and a file server running Windows server 2003.
I have just installed DHCP on both of them sharing a pool of addresses on the same subnet.
I then added them both as authorised servers.

I installed DHCP on the DC first, and the service ran successfully. I was also able to test DHCP on a client PC, and it could renew it's IP from the DC successfully.
I then installed DHCP on the file server, so that IPs could still be allocated if the DC went down. I tested other client PCs, and they were able to renew their IPs from the file server via DHCP.

As I was moving the office PCs from fixed IPs to DHCP, I noticed that they were only picking up IPs from the file server. So I looked on the DC, and it showed that DHCP service had stopped - although DHCP client service was still running. The DC and the file-server do NOT have DHCP enabled in their TCP/IP settings, and both have fixed IPs.

The DC showed the following errors in event logs:
Event Type:      Error
Event Source:      DhcpServer
Event Category:      None
Event ID:      1053
Date:            10/03/2008
Time:            11:47:47
User:            N/A
Computer:      <>
Description:
The DHCP/BINL service on this computer running Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server has encountered another server on this network with  IP Address, 192.168.254.201, belonging to the domain: .

and this error

Event Type:      Error
Event Source:      DhcpServer
Event Category:      None
Event ID:      1054
Date:            10/03/2008
Time:            11:47:47
User:            N/A
Computer:      <>
Description:
The DHCP/BINL service on this computer is shutting down.  See the previous event log messages for reasons.

Can you think why the file server's DHCP services might be stopping the DC's DHCP services?

Thanks very much,
L

Answer : DHCP service stopping on Domain Controller, even though both DHCP servers authorised.

I've never tried this (I always went for a single DHCP with a standby DHCP).
If I understand the Technet article correctly, you must create the same scope on both DHCP servers.
Then exlude accoring to the 80/20 rule:

Server 1:
Scope:
192.168.254.1 to 192.168.254.200
Exclude: .1 - .49

Server 2:
Scope:
192.168.254.1 to 192.168.254.200
Exclude: .50 - .200