Hi Tom,
At last - one I think I can answer! However - a warning. I researched
all this stuff for a client who wanted to give different options to Unix
clients, pre-Win2K clients and Win2K clients all mixed on common subnets
and all serviced by the same Win2K DHCP server. I passed it over and he
said it worked, but I never saw it. The theory still sounds good
though, but please just let us all know if it works!!
I think you can achieve what you need by using classes in DHCP. Windows
2000 DHCP extends the familiar options that can be set at scope level.
In addition to all the usual stuff like default gateway, domain etc., MS
have added "Vendor" and "User" classes.
MS have already populated the Vendor classes with Windows 2000 and
Windows 98. Using these as an example will probably help to understand
them.
Start the DHCP mmc and right-click on Scope Options. Select the
"Advanced" tab. Select Microsoft Windows 2000 options. You will see a
drop-down list of MS specific stuff like "disable NetBIOS". As I
understand it, any MS Win2K DHCP client receiving IP configs from this
DHCP server will also receive any options set here. Any non-MS client
can also be served by the same DHCP server, but won't get those MS
specific options.
Now the interesting bit. Right click on the SERVER entry in the mmc.
Take the "Define User Classes" option. You'll see a window that already
has two entries. Click the Add button to add one of your own. I guess
from your post your requirement has something to do with buildings and
you want to set options based on which building a client is in. I added
"Greystone" as my example building. The use of "Add" window is not
immediately obvious. The name in my example is Greystone. The
description - well... In the last window you must click on either
Binary, Hex or Ascii, take ASCII and again enter Greystone.
Now when you right click the SCOPE option again and click advanced,
under User classes you'll see "Greystone". Here you can set all the
DHCP options you want for any client identifying itself as belonging to
Greystone, including domain name.
But this is only half the story. You now need to tell the client how to
identify to the DHCP server that it's in Greystone. That's easy. It's
a new option in good old IPCONFIG that you are so familiar with, you
never bothered recently to look at the help text. So let's do that now:
D:\>ipconfig /?
USAGE:
ipconfig [/? | /all | /renew [adapter] | /release [adapter] |
/flushdns | /displaydns | /registerdns |
/showclassid adapter |
/setclassid adapter [classid] ]
where
adapter Connection name
(wildcard characters * and ? allowed, see examples)
Options:
/? Display this help message
/all Display full configuration information.
/release Release the IP address for the specified adapter.
/renew Renew the IP address for the specified adapter.
/flushdns Purges the DNS Resolver cache.
/registerdns Refreshes all DHCP leases and re-registers DNS names
/displaydns Display the contents of the DNS Resolver Cache.
/showclassid Displays all the dhcp class IDs allowed for adapter.
/setclassid Modifies the dhcp class id.
Note the last two options. Assuming you are on a LAN connected client
and you haven't renamed the LAN connection, if you enter "ipconfig
/showclassid LO* (for Local Area Connection 1) you'll see the classes to
which the client currently belongs. You can change those classes for an
individual client by using the ipconfig /setclassid command above.
You'll see there are options too, that deal with RRAS and remote
clients. Potentially very useful, e.g. short lease times for dialup
clients.
To quote from "Microsoft Windows 2000 TCP/IP Protocols and Services
Technical Reference", (essential book but no Amazon plug here):
OPTION CLASSES [page 324]
A DHCP options class is an additional set of options that can be
provided to a DHCP client based on the computer being a member of a
class of computers. The administrator can use these to sub-manage
option values provided to DHCP clients. There are two types of option
classes supported by Windows 2000 DHCP server; vendor classes and user
classes.
When an administrator configures options classes on a DHCP server, a
client belonging to that class, for example, all Windows 2000 computers,
can be provided with class-specific option types for its configuration.
To support earlier DHCP clients that are unable to support sending of
the class ID, the administrator can configure default classes to provide
option values. This allows the administrator to leverage options
specifically provided in a particular client class, simultaneously
allowing the administrator to provide all necessary options for other
clients.
A DHCP client can indicate in the DHCP protocol messages it sends to a
server that the client is a member of a particular user or vendor class.
The administrator can use DHCP to define option values that are returned
only for this client class. For example, the administrator can
configure options specific to Windows 2000 computers, which can be sent
option values (for example, whether or not to release a DHCP lease when
shutting down). Other clients, such as Windows 95, which cannot support
this feature, wouldn't receive these values.
For a DHCP client to receive option values for these extended options,
the client must specify a user class string option, identifying the
client type. The DHCP can then use this to identify extra options to be
sent to the client. The user class option is set using the IPCONFIG
command.
End.
So my client had a UNIX DNS and DHCP server, looking after his
population of 98 and Unix clients. We managed to persuade him he really
DID want Win2K DNS and DHCP, but he wanted to make sure the Unix boxes
still received stuff from the UNIX DHCP server and only the MS boxes
were handled by the Win2K DHCP. Of course we had to ensure the scopes
didn't overlap, but as far as I know, it worked like a charm. His
sacred UNIX environment wasn't polluted by the upstart Win2K environment
and he could still regard Win2K with the disdain appropriate to his
totally UNIX based University education, whilst we were able to wallow
in the luxury of a fully integrated Win2K DNS/DHCP setup!
PLEASE let me know if you can use this to solve your problem, then we
can all use it to overcome the hoary old arguments against Win2K DNS
that make our lives so hard.
Greetings from snowy Switzerland.
Richard Sargeant, MCSE, MCT.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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