DHCP Failover with relay that only sends requests to a single server

[Glenn Satchell]

On Wed, February 19, 2014 12:00 am, Leigh Porter wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I would like to create a DHCP failover group for a number of relay agents.
> However, although these agents can be configured with a primary and
> secondary DHCP server, they only try them in sequence (i.e. they will send
> the request to one and then the other if that fails to respond).
>
> So I can configure a load balance of 255 and cause the primary server to
> answer all new requests and then the secondary should answer renews if it
> ever gets them. However, the secondary server will never answer requests
> as it has no pool available.
>
> Could I configure two failover groups with both servers to be primary in
> one group for a pool and then secondary for eachother? Or is there a nicer
> way to achieve this?
>
> --
> Leigh Porter

Hi Leigh

One pool is sufficient even with a balance of 255. The failover peers
always balance the remaining leases evenly between them. This is to
maximise the number of available leases if the other peer fails.

You probably don't even need to worry about the balance setting. With the
default setting both will respond to whatever requests they get. The
balance thing is when both receive all requests but you prefer only one to
answer.

regards,
-glenn