Hello, I've inherited a Win 2003 server, that has been maintained by the vendor and that has its NIC's TCP/IP set up incorrectly. TCP/IP on the NIC is setup has "Obtain an IP address automatically", obtain DNS server automatically, and on the alternate config, has autoassign selected. That's it for the TCP/IP config. Nothing else. It is difficult to explain what I'm seeing... and not being involved with changes over time, I can't tell you "and before this happened such and such was changed to..." (Sorry) Occasionally, the system will get an IP address in the proper range for our network. But the system will attempt to register PTR RRs and be denied. It can also be denied a DHCP lease on the same IP. -- Security? I don't know what kind of security the DHCP server would require. IP address already in use? But if this system already had that IP, how would another system have that IP so soon, already? Or is this explained by this (*) below? Most of the time it fails to obtain an IP from the DHCP server and self-assigns a 169.254.x.x range address to itself. Today for some reason, it has a 192.168.x.x IP. I thought self-assigned addresses were always started with 169. How did it get a 192? And the denials to register PTR RRs continue to this day. Occasional A record denials, too. --- (*) As you can probably imagine, we have a lot of connectivity problems with this machine!!! Right now for instance, if I tracert from my site to the server by its name, not fully qualified, it resolves to a different computer name, with a different qualified domain name. Remoting into the the "different" takes me to the same computer. So yeah, we're good. ;-) (*) We've been seeing things like that for a while as we change from one domain suffix to another across physical site locations. I still don't understand how it can happen, however. DN servers not being updated? How long should it take? We've been seeing that problem for this particular system for a couple of weeks. I think my biggest question is -- how does this system EVER communicate with other computers on the network? If it gives itself its own IP, and it is regularly denied updating records, how can anyone other device find it? I guess sometimes it isn't denied and we're not auditing those events, right? If is sometimes not denied, why is it denied at other times? The system drops off the network occasionally. Sometimes for minutes. And we see it unable to communicate with other devices and lose its connection to its database (hosted elsewhere) occasionally, even though it is on the network still. But for a large portion of the time, it talks with those devices, sends data to a database and I just plain don't understand how. So, a short "for dummies" theoretical explanation would be appreciated. I am not sure that anyone can provide me with a less theoretical one without me dumping out event logs and correlating network blip times. And, it really isn't worth that level of examination. We're going to resolve this by giving the machine a fixed IP address, which it should have had from the beginning given the type of system it is. But I'm darned curious how the way it is set up now ever works. Thanks in advance, DMZ

Yes, generally a server that provides roles and or services to other devices on the network should have a static assigned address outside of the dhcp scope. As for the sporadic dhcp I'd check the logs on your dhcp server. You mention sometimes getting 192.168.xxx.xxx address might mean you also have some other device configured as dhcp server on network causing some of these issues. Regards, Dave Patrick .... Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows]

Yes, generally a server that provides roles and or services to other devices on the network should have a static assigned address outside of the dhcp scope. As for the sporadic dhcp I'd check the logs on your dhcp server. You mention sometimes getting 192.168.xxx.xxx address might mean you also have some other device configured as dhcp server on network causing some of these issues. Regards, Dave Patrick .... Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows]

Hi, Thanks for posting here 169.254.x.x is APIPA address which mean this server has problem to obtain an address lease form your DHCP server somehow: Session “DHCP Automatic Client Configuration” http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2009/01/29/dhcp-client-behavior.aspx And I suspect there is another server with same host name connecting in your network , you may first verify if get name conflict warring form event viewer on this server. And this does will cause communication issue . Troubleshooting DHCP clients http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757164(WS.10).aspx And I agree you may consider to bind a static address for this host and set reservation for it on DHCP server . Thanks. Tiger LiPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, Thanks for posting here 169.254.x.x is APIPA address which mean this server has problem to obtain an address lease form your DHCP server somehow: Session “DHCP Automatic Client Configuration” http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2009/01/29/dhcp-client-behavior.aspx And I suspect there is another server with same host name connecting in your network , you may first verify if get name conflict warring form event viewer on this server. And this does will cause communication issue . Troubleshooting DHCP clients http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757164(WS.10).aspx And I agree you may consider to bind a static address for this host and set reservation for it on DHCP server . Thanks. Tiger LiPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.