NSSA-245-Lab02 DHCP Updated
NSSA-245-Lab02 DHCP Updated
Introduction
The DHCP protocol is used to “dynamically” assign IP addresses, and other network information to DHCP configured
clients. During this lab, you will install and set up the DHCP service on Windows and Linux, explore the DHCP protocol
by examining network traces and observe the different DHCP states for the client and server. Specifically, you will install
and configure the DHCP service on Windows Server using the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and then on CentOS by
editing the DHCP configuration file. You will further explore the behavior of DHCP by examining traffic between the
client and server during the release and renewal procedure. Next, you will set up DHCP relay agents, since it is unlikely
that there will be a dedicated server for each subnet in an enterprise environment. Finally, given the critical nature of
the service, you will explore DHCP failover.
Reminder: All Wireshark traces for this and future labs must have a time stamp that shows the Year,
Day of Year, and Time of Day. If your screenshots do not show this, you will receive zero points for
answering the question.
Lab Goals
To understand the DHCP processes between servers and clients on the network.
To become knowledgeable about the DHCP State Transition Diagram.
To analyze and interpret Wireshark traces correctly as they pertain to DHCP traffic.
To observe and explain how DHCP relays message from once network to another.
To understand how DHCP failover works.
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ACTIVITY 1 – INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING DHCP ON WINDOWS SERVER
To install the DHCP service on Windows Server you will be using the Add Roles and Features Wizard and for
configuration the graphical user interface.
Note: You are building servers and so we will have to isolate later in the lab.
b. Launch the Add Roles and Features Wizard from the Server Manager dashboard. The icon is on the taskbar.
c. The first window to appear (Figure 2), “Before you begin” has important information and should be read to
confirm that the required preconditions are observed, in an enterprise environment it is important to read this
information. However, for the lab you can click, Next.
d. For the Installation Type, select Role-based or feature-based installation (Figure 3), the default selection, and
click Next.
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e. This is the local server and will be the only server listed (Figure 4), click Next.
f. From the Server Roles, select “DHCP Server” and click Next. This will automatically bring up the “Add Roles and
Features” window.
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h. After adding the default features, you are returned the Server Roles screen (Figure 7), hit Next.
Figure 7 – Server Roles
j. The next window will indicate you are installing the DHCP Server (Figure 9), click Next.
Figure 9 – DHCP Server
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k. Confirm installation (Figure 10) and click the Install button.
Figure 10 – Confirm Installation
l. If you select the check box to Restart the server automatically the following window will appear (Figure 11). A
restart is not required for the DHCP service.
m. Be patient! The installation can take some time (Figure 12), remember this is Windows. Click the Close button to
close the wizard and return to Service Manager.
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n. Once the installation is complete, perform the “Post Installation Configuration” by clicking the yellow caution
symbol and “Complete DHCP Configuration” below the flag Server Manager menu bar (Figure 13).
o. Select the default options for the security groups Group Policy Delegation (Figure 14). Click the Commit button.
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1.2. Windows DHCP Server Scope Configuration
Important!!! You are now configuring a DHCP server. Isolate from the lab by moving your machines to a rack
switch and statically configure your IP address.
a. To configure various DHCP options you can select DHCP from the Server Manager Dashboard, or from the Server
Manager menu, select Tools DHCP.
b. First, we need to define the scope for the network that we are providing address to. To launch the New
Scope Wizard, right click on IPv4 and select “New Scope…” from the dropdown menu (Figure 16).
c. Once the wizard is launched (Figure 17), click the Next button.
d. Name the scope using your Pod number followed by the bench computer numbers, i.e. Pod7_12. You must use
this naming convention to receive full credit for answering any questions on the report.
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e. If you recall classful subnetting from Introduction to Routing and Switching, the class defines the network
portion of the address. Since we are using the default Class C mask for this lab, the range of available IP
addresses is 254, or 28 – 2, meaning you have 10.150.X.1 through 10.150.X.254 and the mask is /24, or
255.255.255.0. For demonstration purposes, you will not use all the available addresses, instead define a DHCP
scope of 10.150.X.1 through 10.150.X.30. See Figure 19 for an example.
f. Next, exclude addresses 10.150.X.1 through 10.150.X.16 by entering the information in Start IP address and
End IP address fields, Figure 20.
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g. Once the information is added, be sure to hit the Add button, and click Next (Figure 21).
h. Next, configure the lease time. For now, leave it set to the default, which is 8 days (Figure 22). You will be
changes this later in the lab. Click Next.
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i. Next, you will be configuring a couple DHCP options. First, the default gateway and then the DNS server. Select
the radio button, “Yes, I want to configure these options now,” as scene in Figure 23and click Next.
j. Add the default gateway to be used by DHCP clients for your respective network and click Next.
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k. For now, the DNS servers you will being using are either RITs’, 129.21.3.17 and 129.21.4.18, or Googles public
DNS servers, 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Optionally, you may add a parent domain, Figure 25. Add the servers and click
Next. If you configured a static IP address for the server, you may already have DNS entries.
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l. There is nothing to configure for Windows Internet Name Service, WINS (Figure 26) so just click Next.
m. The last thing to do is to activate the scope (Figure 27) and click Next.
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o. Close all windows and then re-launch DHCP from Server Manager. The scope will show “active,” Figure 29. If you
forgot to move to your own VLAN, the server may detect another DHCP server and not activate.
p. Test time and a great time to start captures! Bring up your Windows 10 clone and see if you get an IP address on
the proper network. If all goes well, you should have an address in the scope of your DHCP server but outside
the exclusion range.
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1.3. Windows DHCP Server Adding a DHCP Exclusion
To add an additional exclusion to the scope, you can launch the DHCP service from the Server Manager. It does not
have to be done during the initial configuration.
a. Expand the menu options for the scope and click on Address Pool.
b. Right click and from the menu, select “New Exclusion Range…” (Figure 30).
c. Exclude addresses 10.150.X.17 through 10.150.X.20 for your network (Figure 31), enter the required
information, click Add and then Close.
d. Another test – Release and renew the IP address of your Windows 10 clone. It should pick up an address
outside of this new exclusion zone.
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1.4. Windows DHCP Server: Adding a DHCP Reservation
a. Expand the menu options for the scope and click on Reservations.
b. Right-click and from the menu, and select “New Reservation…” (Figure 32). This will bring up the
New Reservation window (Figure 33).
Figure 32 – Launch the New Reservation Window
d. You will need to enter the MAC address and the IP address. Just for fun, put it inside the exclusion
zone. Optionally, you may give the reservation a name and description.
e. Once you have entered the information click the Add button and the reservation will be listed under the
Reservations column (Figure 34).
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Figure 34 – Listed Reservations
f. Another test – see if your Windows client VM can get the new IP address.
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1.5. Windows DHCP Server Configuring a New Lease Time
To change the lease time, right-click on the scope and select Properties from the drop-down menu (Figure 35).
a. From the Scope Properties window, change the lease time to 2 minutes (Figure 36).
b. Perform a capture on your Windows 10 client to see if it obeys the lease time.
c. Back on the server, right click “Scope Options” and review what you see listed there.
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Before we get started with the install, once you have the clones running, take a look at the networking details for the
host, virtual network editor and the virtual machines. Some of the challenges associated with this environment include
keeping the addresses straight and figuring out where to capture the desired traffic. After examining the network
details, fill out the table in your lab report.
tcpdump
Let’s add to your toolbox. Wireshark has a command line version but there is another powerful tool for capturing and
analyzing network traffic: tcpdump. You can take a look at the man page for it but two basic operations include:
simple capture with output to the screen: tcpdump -i interface (ex. tcpdump -i ens33)
With some adjustments, tcpdump can provide output very similar to Wireshark.
b. Perform a quick a test to confirm you are able to ping an Internet address (i.e. 8.8.8.8).
c. Update the Linux virtual machine, using the following command. If you are worried about bandwidth, just
try the server install.
yum update
e. Since the server will need to be listening on port 67 for DHCP traffic, add firewall rules to allow DHCP traffic by
typing the following commands.
f. To verify it is listening for DHCP traffic, type the following command, you will see dhcp listed as one of the
services.
firewall-cmd –-list-services
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2.2 Create the Basic Configuration File
Important!!! You are now configuring a DHCP server. Isolate from the lab by moving your machines to a rack
switch and statically configure your IP address.
The Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) provides the DHCP software that runs on clients, servers and relay agents.
This organization via the software download is the authoritative source for documentation (i.e., man pages) related
to DHCP. The primary source of information for the DHCP server is the dhcp.conf file. This file is an ASCII (American
Standard Code for Information Interchange) text file, which is parsed by the DHCP server software. The file can
include information that is not read by the parser by including the sharp symbol (#) before the text. The file also
contains statements that fall under two categories, parameters, and declarations.
Parameters tell the DHCP service what “options” are available such as the network mask or the lease renewal time
to use. In most cases, you will want to refer to the dhcp-options man page for information related to DHCP options.
RFC 2132 standardizes which “options” may be passed to hosts on the network. However, the list continually
changes and to check for the most current information the IANA is always a good place to look.
http://www.iana.org/assignments/bootp-dhcp-parameters/bootp-dhcp-parameters.xhtml
Declarations provide topological information about the network such as subnet ranges, reservations or lease
information. Declarations can describe information about clients and groups of clients on the network. One of the
most common examples of a declaration in the dhcpd.conf file is the subnet declaration. Since it is common for
subnets to share the same physical network they typically appear in the shared-network declaration, see Figure 37
for an example. Notice in the example, two subnet ranges are declared, for the shared network “healthyfood.”
a. Now that you have some background information on the file and some understanding of its contents use the
basic configuration file (Figure 38) for reference and edit the dhcp.conf file for your network. Additionally, there
is a sample file located in /usr/share/doc/dhcp*/dhcpd.conf.example (where * is the current version. Ex. 4.2.5)
that you can use, you may even want to make a copy of that file and edit it. The configuration file is located in
/etc/dhcp.
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Note: When you are editing the file notice that each statement ends with a semicolon and information
within the subnet declaration is enclosed in curly brackets. Remember “x” denotes the network
associated with your bench number and computer.
b. Once, you are done editing the file check for errors by typing the following command.
#dhcpd configtest
Note: You need to be in the same directory as the configuration file when running the command.
c. The output of the command will look similar to the output in Figure 29. You can ignore the warning,
“Not configured to listen on any interfaces!”
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d. WARNING: You will have problems if you forgot to switch your VLAN connection and give your server a static IP
address.
e. The command does a pretty good job of identifying errors, but you can also look in /var/log/messages for more
information. If there are no errors start the service by typing the following command.
f. When things go right, the Red Hat distribution of Linux isn’t good too about letting you know. If you hit enter,
and do not receive any feedback, that is good! But if you want to check the status and confirm that the service
is running type the following command.
Note: The letter “l” follows “status,” not the number one.
g. The output will look similar to Figure 40, the key piece of information is that it will show “active (running).”
h. For more information, refer to Chapter 10 of the Red Hat Enterprise 7 Networking Guide. And there are always
the man pages.
i. Test time and a great time to capture traffic! Test that the clients in Network B are able to receive IPv4
addresses from the defined range of addresses in the pool.
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2.3 Modifying the Configuration File
For this activity, you will make changes to the dhcpd.conf file. Use the information in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Networking Guide to help you with the modifications. You may also want to experiment with where you place the
declaration statement, in other words, does it need to be within the range declaration or will it work just as well in
the global parameters? As always verify that the changes have worked, at this point you should be very familiar
with the commands to stop and restart the service on CentOS.
a. Modify the configuration to add two subnet ranges. The first will include addresses
from 40 to 42 and the second 46 to 60. For example, using the network 10.150.71.0/24
you would define the range as 10.150.71.40 to 10.150.71.42, and a second range of
10.150.71.46 to 10.150.71.60.
b. Next create a reservation for one of the clients. To do this you will need to add a “host
declaration” to the dhcpd.conf file. For the reservation use the 10.150.x.48 address in
your network. Use man dhcpd.conf OR man dhcpd if you get stuck.
c. On the Linux client, to release a DHCP assigned IP address type the following
command.
#dhclient -r
#dhclient
e. If it did not work, you can try restarting the dhcpd.service in order to get the process to reread your config file.
Now that you have the service running on Linux and Windows you will need to capture a demonstration of DHCP
functionality to include in your report. To obtain credit demonstrate the following with appropriate screen captures.
From the network with Windows Server acting as the DHCP server, show that the clients are receiving their IP
addresses via DHCP. On the Windows client use the command prompt and the ipconfig /all command, on Linux
use the terminal and the ip a command. In the output from ip a and ipconfig /all commands explicitly show that
the addresses were received via DHCP.
From the network with Linux acting as the DHCP server show that the clients are receiving their IP addresses
using DHCP. On the Windows client use the command prompt and the ipconfig /all command, on Linux use the
terminal and the ip a command. In the output from ip a and ipconfig /all commands explicitly show that the
addresses were received via DHCP.
Demonstrate that reservations are working.
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ACTIVITY 3 – ANALYZING THE DORA PROCESS
Now that our servers are functioning, it is time to analyze the traffic that is being generated between them and the
clients. From lecture, you should have a basic understanding of the DORA process, the traffic that is created, and the
different client and server states that occur during this procedure.
Please Note: Make sure the servers have no prior knowledge about the clients Layer 2 addresses.
Before capturing any trace clear the ARP tables on the respective DHCP server. Using the following
commands.
From the Windows Command Prompt enter the command, arp -d.
From the Linux Terminal enter the command, ip n f all.
b. On the Windows client, from the Command Prompt use the following command, to release the
currently assigned IP address, if there is one.
d. On the Windows client, from the Command Prompt enter the following command to initiate the DHCP request.
e. Save the capture so that it can be used to answer questions on the report.
f. Launch Wireshark on a Linux client in the network using Windows as the DHCP server.
g. On the Linux client, from the Terminal use the following command, to release the currently assigned IP address.
#dhclient -r
i. On the Linux client, from the Terminal enter the following command to initiate the DHCP request.
#dhclient
j. Save the capture so that it can be used to answer questions on the report.
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b. On the Windows client, from the Command Prompt use the following command, to release the
currently assigned IP address.
d. On the Windows client, from the Command Prompt enter the following command to initiate the DHCP request.
e. Save the capture so that it can be used to answer questions on the report.
f. Launch Wireshark on a Linux client in the network using Linux as the DHCP server.
g. On the Linux client, from the Terminal use the following command, to release the currently assigned IP address.
#dhclient -r
l. On the Linux client, from the Terminal enter the following command to initiate the DHCP request.
#dhclient
m. Save the capture so that it can be used to answer questions on the report.
Network Traces Summary – For the report, you are expected to analyze and comment on the similarities and
differences in the DORA conversation between the Windows and Linux DHCP servers and their respective clients.
The table below summarizes the four network traces you will need. A fourth column has been added for you to
record the pcap file name.
Important Information: For the report pay particular attention to the Layer 3 addresses used by the
clients and the servers. For these tests, make sure the servers have no prior knowledge about the
clients Layer 2 addresses, and clear the servers ARP tables.
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ACTIVITY 4 – ANALYZE THE RELEASE AND RENEWAL PROCESS ON WINDOWS AND LINUX
For this activity, you will be analyzing the renewal messages that occur between a DHCP client and server. Throughout
this activity, you will be asked to capture traffic, be sure to save all your traces for the report. A table (Table 3) has been
provided at the end of the activity to record the pcap file names for your convenience. Also, having the DHCP state
transition diagram nearby will be helpful in answering in the report. When capturing traffic pay attention to the current
state, the message that is sent by either the client or the server and the new state that the client or server transitions
to.
b. On the Windows client, start a network trace filtering for traffic on port 67, (upd.port==67).
b. On the Windows client, start a network trace filtering for traffic on port 67, (upd.port==67).
For the report, you will need to save the four traces. The table below provides a summary of the tests
performed and space to record the file name for each trace so that you may reference it when you are writing
the report.
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b. Issue the follow command to view the contents of the dhclient.leases file. If the file does not exist, try entering
the dhclient command to create it.
#dhclient
#cat /var/lib/dhclient/dhclient.leases
d. To find the lease information form a Windows client, open the Command Prompt and use the ipconfig /all
command.
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ACTIVITY 5 – CONFIGURE DHCP RELAY AGENT OPERATION ON LINUX AND WINDOWS
This activity will introduce relay functionality to the existing DHCP servers. It is unlikely that you will find dedicated
DHCP servers for each network or subnet in an enterprise environment and it is for this reason that you will explore the
relay process in this lab. For clarity, any reference to “Network A” refers to the network that is using Windows Server as
the DHCP Server, and “Network B” refers to the network where CentOS is the DHCP server.
This activity will go much easier if you have a handle on DHCP relay. DHCP traffic lives on a local area network only
because routers do not forward layer 2 broadcast traffic. However, it is often the case that having a DHCP server on
each network is not convenient. In cases like this the DHCP requests must be sent to an active server on another
network. This is often handled by a router. When the router recognizes DHCP traffic, it forwards this traffic to the
DHCP server. In our case, we will be reconfiguring a DHCP server on one network to forward traffic to the DHCP server
on the other network.
a. On the Windows Server, create a second scope for Network B and configure any relevant DHCP options. Active
the scope and restart the DHCP service.
b. Next, we stop the DHCP service on CentOS. To do this, type the following command.
#systemctl stop dhcpd.service
c. To configure CentOS to be a relay agent we need to make some minor configuration changes which can be
found in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Networking Guide, section 10.3. DHCP Relay Agent. Information can also
be found in the man pages, dhcrelay (8). However, the steps have been provided for your convenience.
d. Depending on your version, you made need to install the dhcp relay service.
e. Copy the dhcrelay.service file to the system directory using the following command.
#cp /lib/systemd/system/dhcrelay.service /etc/systemd/system/dhcrelay.service
f. Using a text editor, edit the ExecStart option under section [Service] and add the IP address of the DHCP server
that DHCP requests will be forwarded to.
#vim /etc/systemd/system/dhcrelay.service
#ExecStart=/usr/sbin/dhcrelay -d –-no-pid 10.150.x.x
g. To activate the changes and restart the service enter the following commands.
i. Capture network traffic on the Linux Relay Agent and save the trace for the report.
a. First, stop the DHCP Service on Windows Server, by right-clicking on the server from the DHCP Service console
(Figure 43). From the drop-down menu, select All Tasks and Stop.
b. On the Linux server stop the relay service and start the DHCP service by entering the following commands.
d. To install the Relay Agent on Windows Server, launch the Add Roles and Features Wizard (Figure 44).
Figure 44 – Before You Begin
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e. Click Next and select Role-based or feature-based installation (Figure 45). Click Next.
f. Select the local server from the Server Selection window (Figure 46) and click Next.
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g. From the Roles selection window (Figure 47), check Remote Access.
h. Click Next, three more times until you get to the Select role services window (Figure 48). Check the
DirectAccess and VPN (RAS) box, and add the required default features (Figure 49) for this service.
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i. Add the features and click Next, 3 more times until you get to the confirmation window (Figure 50) and click
Install.
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j. When the installation is complete, click Close (Figure 51). You do not need to restart the server.
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l. Once Routing and Remote Access launches right-click on the server and from the drop-down menu select
Configure and Enable Routing and Remote Access (Figure 52).
m. This will launch the Routing and Remote Access Server Setup Wizard (Figure 53), click Next.
n. From the Configuration window (Figure 54) select Custom configuration and click Next.
Figure 54 – Configuration Selection
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o. From the Customer Configuration window (Figure 44), select LAN routing and click Next.
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Figure 45 – Complete Configuration
r. From the Routing and Remote Access console, expand server to reveal IPv4, expand IPv4 to reveal General.
s. Right-click on General and from the drop-down menu select New Routing Protocol.
t. From the New Routing Protocol window, select DHCP Relay Agent and click OK (Figure 47).
u. DHCP Relay Agent will appear under IPv4 (Figure 48), right-click and from the drop-down menu
select Properties.
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v. In the DHCP Relay Agent Properties window, enter the IP address of the DHCP server in Network B(Figure
49). Click Add, Apply, and OK.
Figure 49 – DHCP Relay Agent Properties
w. Right-click on DHCP Relay Agent again, and select New Interface, select the interface that will be listening for
DHCP messages, in the example provided (Figure 50), it is “Ethernet0,” yours may be different. Click OK.
x. We can leave the default settings in the DHCP Relay Properties – Interface Properties window (Figure 51), and
click OK.
Figure 51 – Relay Agent Interface Properties
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y. At this point, the interface will be enabled and is ready to collect information about requests it receives
and discards (Figure 52).
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ACTIVITY 6 – CONFIGURE AND ANALYZE DHCP FAILOVER
6.1 Configure DHCP Failover on CentOS
a. Create a “full clone” of your CentOS DHCP server and add it to network B, assign it a static IP address of
10.150.X.202. For the remainder of the lab, CentOS VM will be referred to as the “secondary” DHCP server.
b. Next, configure the original Linux DHCP server as the “primary” DHCP server for failover. For the remainder of
the lab, this will be referred to as the “primary” DHCP server. Assign it a static IP address of 10.150.X.101.
c. To configure failover, you will need to modify the configuration files on both servers.
d. “Pull up your “boot straps!” Up to this point, you have been given fairly detailed instructions. Now, it is time to
use readily available documentation from an authoritative source, in this case, the Internet Systems Consortium.
“A Basic Guide to Configuring DHCP Failover” is posted to myCourses, use the information in this document to
configure DHCP Failover.
Please Note: You are not required to configure OMAPI and define a secret key for the lab.
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6.2 Test DHCP Failover
The final mission for this lab is to test that DHCP failover is working properly. Additionally, Windows Server is a fully
functional DHCP Relay Agent for Network A. Throughout this activity you will want to get network captures from both
networks to analyze the traffic being sent and received from the servers. You will need to include screenshots from the
ipconfig /all command to support you answers.
Note: You need to save network traces and screenshots that can demonstrate failover is working.
a. First, test to make sure that the client can receive its network configuration settings from the failover server. To
do this, shutdown the DHCP service on the CentOS.
b. Next, begin a network trace on clients in both networks. Using the required commands, force the clients to
reconfigure their network settings.
c. Verify both clients received their network settings from the failover server (10.150.X.202). Using a network
trace verify that Windows Server is functioning as the relay agent. Once confirmed saved your network traces
for the report.
e. Next stop the service on the secondary server. Release and renew on a client in either network and capture a
new set of traces. Be sure to save them for the report.
f. As a final exercise, enable the DHCP service on both the primary and secondary servers, capture another set of
traces, issue the release and renew commands on a couple clients and save this set of captures for the report.
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