Possible DHCP issue with Win2003 R2 SP2

[Stosh Ritchie]

Anyone having a problem with a Win2003 AD domain controller being the DHCP server? Using Win2003 R2 SP2.

Network - 2 VLANs, default is data, separate VLAN for voice.

Symptoms - phone boots, finds DHCP scope on data VLAN, reboots with proper option 156 info, but then cannot get IP address from DHCP. DCHP scope shows that it handed the address out (MAC address matches). Phone counts to 300 and then tries again.

Odd thing - it works (DHCP) on a separate Win2003 server (not R2!). I think this rules out the infrastructure switches.

I cannot find any references to a problem or resolution. Anyone have some ideas?

[eazeaz]

Dhcp

We are running DHCP on a 2003 r2 box with multiple sites and no issue.

We have seperate physical networks though, no vlans.

We did originally have problems because of our access lists. We had an IP helper from our second site to our main. Our access lists however stopped the dhcp traffic and made the phones act similar to yours. We had to allow access from 0.0.0.0 with a mask of 255.255.255.255 through the access list..............

just rambling.

[Miersk]

I once had a tech who was having a dhcp issue using a vlan. In the end, I found that though he had set option 156 for the default scope, he had not set option 156 for the vlan scope. The result was that the phone came up, received its original ip, and through option 156 got a vlan tag. At that point it rebooted with the correct vlan tag, received the correct ip address, but without 156 it not only did not know where the HQ server was, it also was reset to no vlan tagging, causing it to eventually reboot and restart the cycle.

[Rob Bush]

Pull out the sniffer

Sounds like you need to pull out the sniffer and port mirror the phone port to see what is happening with the DHCP request.

[CT-Pros_Eric]

I am having this exact same problem right now. However, my DHCP server is not an R2. I've been at this for 3 days now, involved ShoreTel, HP, etc.

[svalles]

Ive had this issue many time seems like a bad firmware on shoretel phones from factory I normaly set all ports on the switch to the phone vlan only no tag and let the phones upgrade then switch everything back then everything works.

[ShoreTel_Dave]

I have had this problem a couple of times and it was because the switch port to which the DHCP server is connected was a member of multiple VLAn's.
Make sure that the port for the DHCP server is only part of the vlan for data and is not tagged for the voice VLAN.

This fix comes with my personal guarantee.
If this doesn't fix it I owe you a beer.

[CT-Pros_Eric]

I have had this problem a couple of times and it was because the switch port to which the DHCP server is connected was a member of multiple VLAn's.
Make sure that the port for the DHCP server is only part of the vlan for data and is not tagged for the voice VLAN.

This fix comes with my personal guarantee.
If this doesn't fix it I owe you a beer.

I wish I had seen your post before I spent an additional 4 hours of tinkering to come to the conclusion you listed. That absolutely was the issue.

[ShoreTel_Dave]

Casting my mind back a couple of years, I have also seen problems with Microsoft DHCP where both the data and voice scopes for a site were held within a Superscope.
For some reason, if you used a superscope: After the phone restarted on getting the vlan=? parameter; the DHCP would go and assign the same IP address again. So you would have the phone in the voice vlan but get assigned a data ip address.
To fix this, you needed to delete both scopes and the superscope and then recreate them but this time don't put them in a superscope.
ShoreTel docs mention not to use a superscope somwhere.

(I am not sure whether the problem is ShoreTel or Microsoft, but assuming it still isn't fixed; it is probably Microsoft's fault)

[tgarren]

I have had this problem a couple of times and it was because the switch port to which the DHCP server is connected was a member of multiple VLAn's.
Make sure that the port for the DHCP server is only part of the vlan for data and is not tagged for the voice VLAN.

This fix comes with my personal guarantee.
If this doesn't fix it I owe you a beer.

you owe me a beer! but i would rather just have the issue fixed it is driving me crazy. i was very hopeful when i read this but it didnt fix it.

[tgarren]

looks like i had another issue as well . i think this was part of the fix though.

[ShoreTel_Dave]

Don't forget your router needs to have an IP helper to do DHCP relay or bootp relay to your DHCP server.

[tgarren]

i am running 2 dhcp servers one on a windows box the other on the router. i had some bad config on the router's dhcp but i had this same problem at another office and I would be willing to bet that the port fix is the solution. no more manually configuring phones over there hopefully.

[ShoreTel_Dave]

I love DHCP.
Poking around on phones to input a VLAN ID gets pretty tedious after about 3 phones.
I try and use it wherever possible, it's really useful to be able to put a reservation in for the ShoreGear switches as part of the deployment. You can add the ShoreGears to your configuration in Director before you even rack them up, then when you switch the SHoreGear on, it gets the IP address you were expecting, the server contacts it and they get straight on with updating their software.
I usually telnet onto the ShoreGear and fix the IP address manually afterwards as well but having it on DHCP as a reservation means you can quickly provision a replacement switch after a failure, you just need to update the mac addresses in Director and in DHCP.

On another note, it is worth getting to grips with the netsh command in Windows Server. This lets you configure DHCP using the command line. In an old life I needed to deploy a couple of hundred printers in a warehouse. If you think configuring IP addresses manually on phones is bad, it is worse on a printer where there are no number keys to type in an IP address. So I just got the mac addresses off all the printers (which were conveniently labelled with barcodes which made it even easier) and used Excel to fashion a batch file to load all of them into DHCP.