Network inside of a network, domain and DHCP help

Hello,

I have a testing and demonstration network of one w2k3 PDC/Exchange and
another w2k3 Application/SQL machine. I want to know if I can get these
machines to communicate properly no matter what host network they are
attached to (it travels a lot!) Right now I am stuck with the following to
problems:

1) If I configure the machines to have static IP addresses then each time I
move it I need to rejigger the addresses to work on the new host network
which is most likely configured for DHCP anyway.
2) If I configure the machines to use DHCP they get good addresses, can
reach the internat and see each other via NetBIOS, but many of the domain
specific configuration stuff which seems to want to use the FQN for my
network won't resolve because the host DNS doesn't know about my domain
information.

So it seems like I should setup DNS on my PDC but I don't know if its
possible for the second machine to register with the DNS without the IP
being static.

Is there some direction I can head that will not result in my having to nail
down one of the machines with a static IP?

Thanks,

Jason

 

The short answer is "No, you cannot".

The network is part of the "environment" that the machine operates in. You
cannot move from one "environment" to another "environment" without some
amount of reconfiguring of the machine.

The alternative is www.netswitcher.com

 

Could he use secondary addresses on each NIC? Meaning that the 'primary'
address would be DHCP and the secondary address would be a statically
assigned?

 

mmm.....haven't tried it, but I don't think so.

Looking at the machine I am sitting at,..all the IP config stuff in the GUI
is greyed out when it is DHCP enabled,...even in the Advanced section.

If there were two Nic you could have one setup for each network and then rig
up "hardware profiles" for each network with only the one corresponding Nic
enabled for the network you are using.

That still won't adjust for domain membership but it should help some. But
Netswitcher that handles all that for you is only $15 USD.

 

I can't test this, but what about adding a loopback adapter to each machine
and assigning it an IP? As long as the real NIC is plugged in, it should
work. You would probably want to use an address such as 1.1.1.1 and 1.1.1.2.
That address is public, but not owned by anyone and will not conflict with
RFC1918 addresses.

 

I don't see any purpose for that.

 

It would allow communications across the 1.1.1.0 network, while still
allowing DHCP on the real NIC.

 

mm..well maybe,..I don't know. I'll probably have to call it quits on this
thread. I cleaned up the newreader and unintensionally removed the past post
of the thread and I don't even remember what we were talking about now.