DHCP or fixed IPs for servers ????

[Tim]

On Mon, 2011-09-19 at 00:28 -0600, linux guy wrote:
> I have a number of servers on our local network.  I have always set
> the IP on my servers manually, ie disabled DHCP and assigned each one
> a unique fixed IP.
>  
> Is there a practical way to assign an IP to a server automatically, ie
> with DHCP and still have other computers find it on the network and
> have services like port forwarding, firewalls, etc. work properly in
> routers ?

Yes, if you can configure your DHCP server, you can tell it to always
assign a specific IP to a specific machine.

And, you'd run a DNS server on your LAN (probably on the same machine as
the DHCP server, but it doesn't have to be).  That DNS server would
resolve local machine names, including the ones that we're talking
about.

If your DHCP server is a modem/router, it may be able to do all of that,
or perhaps only part (such as being able to dole out addresses, but not
do DNS lookups for those addresses), it depends on how it was made.

My own LAN has a central server which handles DHCP, DNS, mail, and a few
other services.  It's DNS server is pre-configured with some of the
static IPs that have been hand set on some machines.  The DHCP server
dynamically re-configures the DNS server with any addresses that the
DHCP server has doled out, automatically.

Things, pretty much, "just work," including guest machines (which get
doled out a few addresses in a specific range.

And, as far as having your firewalls and port forwarding rules still
work...  If they're configured to work on specific IPs, it doesn't
matter how that IP was assigned to the machine, so long as the IPs that
you expect to be used are used.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.  I
read messages from the public lists.