Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network protocol used in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The server that supports the protocol is called a DHCP server. As its name indicates, DHCP is a service that provides TCP/IP settings, such as IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS server to the clients, automatically.
For this tutorial, I will be using my domain controller named as WS2K19-DC01 that is configured with 172.18.72.5/24 IP address and hosts the Active Directory Domain Service role for the mylab.local domain. We have one more Windows 10 virtual machine to test the DHCP server functionality.
Things to check before you start
- Assign Static IP address to the server
- Administrative privilege
Step 1: Install the DHCP Server Role in Windows Server 2019
Note: Remember already I have logged on as a domain administrator on WS2K19-DC01 machine. So we have sufficient permission to install DHCP server role and to authorize the DHCP server in Active Directory environment.
1. First of all open Server Manager Console, as we are going to install the DHCP server role.
2. On Server Manager dashboard, Click on Manage and select Add Roles and Features.
3. On before you begin, Click on Next button on the next screen.
4. On the Select installation type console, make sure you select Role-based or feature-based installation and click Next button.
5. On the Select destination server screen, select our local server WS2K19-DC01 and click on Next.
6. On the Select server roles console, select the DHCP Server role for installation.
7. As soon as you choose DHCP, a new window appears. Click Add Features to add required features to manager DHCP server properly. Click on Next.
8. On the select features console, just click next because we do not require any extra features at the moment.
9. On the DHCP Server console, you can read brief information about DHCP server. When you ready, click next to continue.
10. On the “Confirm installation” selections console, Click on Install to start the installation process.
11. This will take some time to complete.
12. Once installation completes, click on “Complete DHCP configuration” link to start the “DHCP post-install wizard”.
In case, if you close the console still you can start the “DHCP post-install wizard” by clicking on yellow exclamation mark on the flag in server manager dashboard.
Step 2: DHCP Post Install Configuration
1. On description console, you can read what DHCP post-install configuration wizard is going to do. This will create two security groups for DHCP administration: DHCP Administrators DHCP Users If the server where you are installing DHCP server role is a domain controller or member server, then this wizard is also going to register DHCP service in Active Directory as well. That is known as a DHCP authorization in Active Directory. Click on Next to continue.
2. On Authorization console, here we need to specify the user credential to register DHCP service in Active Directory. Since we have login as a Domain Administrator and the user has the privilege to do that, I am going with default selection “MYLAB\administrator”. Click on commit to proceed.
3. Once the security group creation and DHCP authorization complete successfully. Click on Close button to close the DHCP post-install configuration wizard.
That’s it, we have successfully completed the installation of DHCP server role on Windows Server 2019 machine. The next task is to create DHCP scopes.
What is DHCP Scope?
A scope is a range of IP addresses on a particular subnet that a DHCP server has selected for allocation to clients when they make a DHCP request.
You can use DHCP management console or PowerShell to create DHCP scope. In this tutorial we will create IPv4 DHCP scope using DHCP management console. You can also refer my video on YouTube to Install and Configure DHCP on Server 2019.
Step 3: Create IPv4 DHCP Scope
1. On Server Manager console, Click on Tools and select DHCP to open DHCP management tool.
2. On the DHCP console, expand your server name. In my case it is ws2k19-dc01.mylab.local.
3. Select IPv4. On right pane you can see brief overview about DHCP scope and how to create it.
4. Right click on IPv4 and select “New Scope” option.
5. The New Scope wizard starts. Click on Next.
6. On the Scope Name screen, type any name of your choice to scope name. Add a description for scope, so you can identify the scope information. Then click Next button.
7. On the IP Address Range screen, provide an IP address range (Start IP address and End IP address). For this demo I am using 172.18.72.100 to 172.18.72.254 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Once you did with all, click next to proceed.
8. On the “Add Exclusions” and Delay screen, leave it empty. Click on Next.
9. On the Lease Duration screen, I will change the default lease duration and set new lease duration to 8 hours. You can adjust it as per your requirement. Click on Next to continue.
10. On Configure DHCP Option, we can configure additional DHCP options such as Gateways IP address, DNS server address etc. Select “Yes, I want to configure these options now” and click on Next to continue.
11. On Router (Default Gateway) page, add your gateways IP address and click Next. (Don’t forget to click on add button after specifying gateways address)
12. We have installed the DHCP server role on our Domain Controller, so the wizard will automatically detect the DNS server’s address. If you wish to add another DNS server address you can but for this demo will use our local DNS address only. Click Next.
13. If you have any WINS server on your network, you can specify the address here. I am going to click on next button as we don’t have any WINS server.
14. On the “Activate Scope” screen, select “Yes, I want to activate this scope now”. Your DHCP server is not able assign IP address to client request, Until you activate the scope. Click Next.
15. On the next screen, click Finish to create a DHCP scope and close the wizard.
16. On the DHCP Console, Now you can see your newly created scope ready to distribute IP addresses to client computers.
After this we can safely say that our DHCP server is configured and ready to allocate TCP/IP settings to the DHCP clients.
