Windows Server as DHCP or pfsense on domain?

J

jdetmold

Weaksauce
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Jan 1, 2011
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I googled it but couldn't find much justification for answers.
lots of people say use the DHCP on your windows server PDC, some even go so far as saying the domain will not function if you use an external DHCP (i know this is incorrect it will work fine).
what i cant figure out is the reason that people prefere WS DHCP, some people say AD integration but dont mention how DHCP and AD are integrated.

In my setup i would like pfsense to handle my pptp server and if i have it doing that it seems just as easy to have it do DHCP and assign DNS to the windows server. also if the PDC goes down for whatever reason it's easy for me to remote in and simply change the DNS settings in pfsense to a new DNS server and have clients reboot, then they at least have internet until the server is back up. this would also mean i could turn the server back on when doing a repair and not have to worry about 2 DHCP servers on the network.

any insight would be great!

Thanks

-Jeff
 
The main reason I can think of is the dynamic DNS updating that happens with Windows clients in the domain.
 
PanzerBoxb said:
The main reason I can think of is the dynamic DNS updating that happens with Windows clients in the domain.
Click to expand...

This is exactly correct. Windows domains are heavily dependent on DNS to function, so having your PDC do DHCP and DNS ensures that when addresses change, so do DNS, and your domain keeps running.

You can do it if your have a different DHCP server, it's just a bigger pain to setup and manage.
 
i had not thought of that as dhcp client names were working fine in my vm test and i just realized why they were.

pfsense DHCP was sending clients to the PDC DNS and the PDC was using pfsense as it's DNS server (in turn forwarding dns to my isp)

i guess thats probably not such a good idea though hey
 
With DHCP it isn't a big issue where it is. DNS is what is important. As long as the dhcp server points to the AD's dns you should be fine. I'd usually keep it on the AD box for organization only. I mean you can always enable dhcp on the router if you have the dc go down.
 
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