Home router or server to host DHCP?

[SunnyD]

In a small home network running on a windows domain, would it be preferable for a home router to serve DHCP hosting or for the network server to do the DHCP hosting?

 

[RebateMonger]

Your other post stated you are running Windows Server and Exchange Server. There's no good reason to use the router as a DHCP Server in this case, and several potential misconfiguration problems. Turn off the DHCP Server in your Router.

In your case, configure Windows Server as your DHCP, DNS, and WINS server. If you are in single-NIC mode on your Server, then set ALL your PCs (both clients and server) to:

DHCP - Server
DNS - Server
WINS - Server
Default Gateway - Router

DHCP on Windows Server can set all of these parameters automatically.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Your other post stated you are running Windows Server and Exchange Server. There's no good reason to use the router as a DHCP Server in this case, and several potential misconfiguration problems. Turn off the DHCP Server in your Router.

In your case, configure Windows Server as your DHCP, DNS, and WINS server. If you are in single-NIC mode on your Server, then set ALL your PCs (both clients and server) to:

DHCP - Server
DNS - Server
WINS - Server
Default Gateway - Router

DHCP on Windows Server can set all of these parameters automatically.

Excellent, thanks for the reply. The only reason I was considering the router as the DHCP server is that it will likely be higher reliability than the server. Granted the server is a laptop and will be "battery backup", but the router would be faster to boot in case of failure and not leave the network inoperable for long periods of time if there's an outage.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
The only reason I was considering the router as the DHCP server is that it will likely be higher reliability than the server. .

Keep the Server maintained, patched, and backed up. With decent hardware, you shouldn't HAVE any downtime. In an emergency, you can always turn the Router's DHCP back on and keep your Internet access to your client PCs. At my clients' offices, I have more problems with ISPs than I ever have with Server 2003 itself.