Here recently we have had a couple of machines lose their IP addresses.... The IP addresses in question have been associated with these machines for the last two plus years....
I believe there have been some changes recently to the network setup, however, this is just an assumption since I can't seem to get a straight forward answer.
With the little bit of information that I was given, or have seen, we have a DHCP scope defined for the location that the machine are at. This DHCP Scope is set from xxx.xxx.xxx.1 - xxx.xxx.xxx.254 with numerous reservations.....
My questions are:
If there are static IP addresses given to these machines that falls within the DHCP Scope, and an exclusion is not setup.
Is it possible for the IP addresses to be stolen by other machines?
Along these same lines, if a reservation happens to be setup within the DHCP Scope for these machines, and they are powered off.... Can the IP addresses at this point be given out to another machine?
One last question:
Say a DHCP Scope has been defined from xxx.xxx.xxx.2 - xxx.xxx.xxx.254, and you setup up an exclusion range withing that DHCP Scope of xxx.xxx.xxx.150 - xxx.xxx.xxx.254. Can/Will DHCP give out any addresses within the excluded range?
Side note: I have always setup the DHCP scope for only the addresses that I require to have DHCP ex. xxx.xxx.xxx.2 - xxx.xxx.xxx.150, and if I needed to use a static IP address I would use one beyond xxx.xxx.xxx.150.... Does anyone do it this way? What's best practice?