Switching from Single DHCP Server to Failover

[Martin McCormick]

If one is changing from a single DHCP server to a failover pair and
wants to keep dhcp alive during the change, is it necessary to start
the primary dhcp server in partner down mode?  The documentation for
dhcpd.conf states that if both servers have never communicated, there
will be a dead time equal to mclt before both servers go in to normal
operation.  That much dead time in our world usually raises a few
eyebrows so I would like to try to keep the primary talking so that
clients don't start asking, "What's wrong?"

	Some of the examples I have seen have
  mclt 1800;
while others show 1 hour or 3600 seconds.  Either way, that's too long
to be down if we can help it.

	One other question:

	In each pool declaration as well as in the primary or
secondary statements for dhcpd.conf, there is a line like:

failover peer "abc" {

	Am I correct in understanding that this string can be anything
inside the double quotes so long as both peers contain the same
string?

	Many thanks.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
Systems Engineer
OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group