Mac Forum / Applications / Other MS Products / January 2005

Dear Elvis,

I see no reason why your Mac won’t be able to automatically receive DHCP
information from your Win2k Server. Just be sure to set up the NIC on your
Mac to “DHCP” -- no other settings should be necessary.

My only (original) concern was regarding having the Mac authenticate to the
Domain (if you have one at all) but in my office we have one PC that is
running Win XP Home which cannot authenticate to Windows 2k Server Domains.
(it stays on Workgroup) – so in this instance the XP Home machine is similar
to your Mac -- and it receives its IP address from the Win2k Server without
problems. (though after ever reboot I have to log in to use shared resources
on the server -- which is a total pain and makes me curse the day I tried to
save $30 by opting for XP Home instead of XP Pro.)

I should tell you that about a month ago we had to change ISP and our new
ISP was for some reason prone to a lot more all the bad stuff around the
world-wide-internet. It quickly became apparent that we needed a firewall
even though we were without a firewall for 7 years without a single problem.
(Actually, there was a router in the closet, but I don’t really understand
what function the router played. It did not serve as a DHCP host – I do
suspect however that it functioned as some sort of firewall but I don’t know
enough to say for sure.)

Anyway, we basically got a basic Linksys 4 port router -- which serves both
as a firewall and the DHCP server.  Plugged the Server into the 1st LAN Port,
and the line connecting to my switch in the closet to the second port.
Everything worked as before – even better I’d say. Besides the firewall
features, I find this setup preferable b/c we no longer have to run DHCP
services. In the past, whenever our server was down for routine maintenance,
the clients would lose their internet connection and I’d get lots of
grumbling from the coworkers (as the unofficial Day-to-Day IT person at my
office)

My advice? Spend the $30 on a cheap router and stop the DHCP services on
your server. Those cheep little routers have a ton of features and I find
they are much more reliable -- and easier to manage -- than Win2k Server.

CMM.

Hi Elvis!

Only a Windows 2000 or later client (including XP Pro) can update its
own DNS information. However, for lower level clients such as Windows NT
and non-Windows clients you can use the DNSUpdateProxy group. Have a
look about midway on this page on Microsoft's website for more
information <http://tinyurl.com/4h67a>.

In a nutshell, the DHCP server itself updates DNS with the client's host
name once the client has received an IP lease. I don't know if this
works with Mac OS 9, but I know it works with Mac OS X without any
additional configuration on the Mac side (i.e. the machine name is
placed into DNS not what is entered into the DHCP Client ID field under
TCP/IP settings).

Hope this helps! bill