Configure DHCP Scopes In Windows Server 2016

After installing the DHCP server role in Windows Server 2016, the first step in configuring DHCP would be creating scope. I will show you how to configure the DHCP scope in step by step process.

Note
Read my previous article to learn the installation process of the DHCP server role.

Important Steps

The following are the 3 important steps in conﬁguring DHCP scopes in Windows Server 2016.

Create New Scope
Conﬁgure Scope
Activate Scope.

Once you have successfully installed the DHCP server role in Windows Server 2016 including all the required management tools, you can open Server Manager and go to —> Tools —> Click on “DHCP”.

Image: Server Manager

Once you click on “ DHCP “, You should be able to see the DCHP Server Manager ( See below ). Here, Ind-dns1 is my windows server 2016 name, and I’m conﬁguring DHCP Scopes on this server. Well, if I expand this server, as we can see I have IPv4 and IPv6 ready to manage….well, I am not going to manage IPv6, I will only show you how to manage IPv4 in this article. As I mentioned above, the ﬁrst step in conﬁguring DHCP scopes is “Creating New Scope”

Creating a New Scope

Image: DHCP Manager

To Create New Scope, right-click on Server —> New Scope.

Select Server —> Click on More Actions —> New Scope. ( See below screenshot )

Scope
Here, the scope is the range of the IP addresses assigned to computers requesting a dynamic IP address. We must create and conﬁgure a Scope before dynamic IP addresses can be assigned.

Image: Creating Scope in DCHP Manager

It will open the New Scope Wizard… Click —> Next

Conﬁgure Scope

Image: New Scope Wizard

Scope Name

Provide a meaningful name to your scope to identify easily. I’ve given my DHCP scope name as “MyCompanyClients”.

Image: New Scope Wizard to give Scope Name

After providing a description to your DHCP scope, you’ll see an IPAddress Range screen where you need to provide the Start and End IP address ( range of the scope ) and also the Subnet Mask and its length.

I speciﬁed the Start IP address: 10.4.77.220

and End IP address: 10.4.77.230. ( For my 10 client computers )

Image: IPAddress Range

You can also specify the exclusions of the IP addresses….As you can see in the below screenshot, I want to exclude IP address 10.4.77.224 / 225 and 226 from this scope. So I entered the Start and End IP addresses in the Exclusions. These IP addresses are not going to be distributed by the DHCP server.

Once you Add Start and End IP addresses in this exclusions wizard. Click —> Add.

Image: IPAddress Exclusions Screen

Image: Excluded IP address range

Now click —> Next to specify the Lease Duration ( Default lease duration is 8 Days ). I am not changing it,

Image: Lease Duration

Note

Read my previous article “DHCP overview”, in case if you don’t know DHCP Lease generation and renew process]

Now click —> Next —> It will ask you to conﬁgure DHCP options, but I want to conﬁgure DHCP options later, so I click on “No” and —> Next.

Image: Conﬁgure DHCP options

That’s it. We have successfully created a DHCP scope with IP address range and exclusions. Now you can see in the below screenshot, If I expand IPv4, I see the Scope I created ( “MyCompanyClients”).

Image: DHCP Scope.

If I expand this scope, I will see the IP address range that is ready for distribution and also the excluded IP address range. ( See below Screenshot ).

Image: DHCP Scope and Address Pool

You may notice in the above screenshot, there’s blue tick mark on IPv4 and the red mark on Scope, which indicates our scope is just created but not activated…So we need to Activate the scope after creating it.

Activate Scope

To activate scope —> Right Click on Scope —> Activate.

Image: Activate Scope

Once you activate the scope, you will not see the blue and red tick marks. That means the Scope has been activated successfully.