Active Directory and 3rd Party DHCP Server

[whalen]

I've got a question for all you A/D gurus.

I recently set up a small office network for my Dad. Right now, it consists of about 6 PC's with Public IPs sitting behind a Router/Firewall. The Router (MikroTik OS) provides firewall, bandwidth shaping, and DHCP for the client machines.

In a few weeks, they are upgrading their main system software to a new version. From what I gather, they are receiving a file server that runs Windows 2003 Server, and a domain will be created for the LAN.

Typically, the Windows Server/DC would act as the DCHP server for the domain. My question is, will Active Directory work correctly with 3rd party DHCP server? What I would like to do is assign a static IP to the Windows Server, keep the existing DHCP server in place, and all would be good to go. I'm not sure though if Active Directory will play nice with the 3rd party DHCP.

Any advice or comments would be great.

Thanks,
Ryan

Edited for Clarity

 

[stash]

I'm not sure what you're asking. A domain controller should always have a static IP. And the clients will continue to get DHCP as they do today.

 

[whalen]

Typically i think you use the Windows Server as the DHCP server for the domain. What I am asking is if things will still work correctly with active directory if I use my current DHCP server rather than Windows built in DHCP server.

 

[kevnich2]

active directory will work just fine with 3rd party dhcp, it's how my network is running. I don't want the DC doing DHCP. It does handle Active Directory, DNS, file sharing, etc. Also, make sure the DC gets a static IP

 

[nweaver]

You don't have to run any extra services on the DC. Even DNS (which is recemmended) doesn't have to, as long as you have it configured correctly. I don't like to run DHCP on my AD, and I like to have a secondary DNS that isn't AD. This is for a larger scale rollout, where I want redundancy.

 

[whalen]

Excellent....thank you all for your input.

 

[EatSpam]

I have AD on my network with a few 2003 servers. I run a DHCP server on my OpenBSD firewall.... it serves DHCP addresses to all the clients on my network. Servers all are static IPs.

 

[owensdj]

AD will work fine with a 3rd party DHCP. Just make sure you use one of your Windows Server 200x machines for your DNS server, not one that belongs to your ISP. AD depends on features that non-Windows servers may or may not implement.

 

[nweaver]

I have done AD with a third party (Novell Netware) DNS server. You just have to make sure you have stuff setup right and the right zones. Much easier to set it up on an AD though, and replicate to non MS DNS servers then to set it up initially.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: nweaver
I have done AD with a third party (Novell Netware) DNS server. You just have to make sure you have stuff setup right and the right zones. Much easier to set it up on an AD though, and replicate to non MS DNS servers then to set it up initially.

Agreed (same situation).

DHCP isn't a big deal... but DNS is.

 

[Nothinman]

AD will work fine with a 3rd party DHCP. Just make sure you use one of your Windows Server 200x machines for your DNS server, not one that belongs to your ISP. AD depends on features that non-Windows servers may or may not implement.

You shouldn't use your ISP's DNS servers for AD anyway, your internal domain should be seperated from your public domain. That and your ISP probably wouldn't like you suddenly filling their DNS servers with the SRV records and non-standard DNS names that AD requires/

 

[Nutz]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

AD will work fine with a 3rd party DHCP. Just make sure you use one of your Windows Server 200x machines for your DNS server, not one that belongs to your ISP. AD depends on features that non-Windows servers may or may not implement.

You shouldn't use your ISP's DNS servers for AD anyway, your internal domain should be seperated from your public domain. That and your ISP probably wouldn't like you suddenly filling their DNS servers with the SRV records and non-standard DNS names that AD requires/

QFT!

Split DNS, 'nuff said.