Re: Printers: DHCP vs STATIC revisited

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David Wood wrote:
I have posted this question before but would like to hear more experiences / opinions
The question is: should printers use DHCP & hostname or static addresses??

The majority of users seem to believe that static is the holy grail for printers-except Microsoft who have over 1000 printers using DHCP (Redmond). At the company I work at there are 100+ printers on DHCP on one site working ok for 2 years but the management seem to belive this should be changed to static (pressure from the techies!)

I realise that legacy systems (Unix, Mainframe etc) require a fixed address since there's no dynamic update but why would anyone need static addresses any more. Even DNS (internally) is no longer static in the Microsoft Active Directory structure

Feedback appreciated



I think you really have to look at what is right for you and your network. If your DHCP and DNS is reliable, and your DHCP server can update your DNS sever of changes then all should be fine. The issue you can run into is with having the printer update its own dns record. This will often fail on an AD network because the DNS server doesn't automatically trust every device on the network. There are work arounds, but this has been one issue that I have run into. Also you add the extra complexity and necessity of relying on DNS. I generally shy away from using DHCP on any device that is relied on on the network. This includes servers, printers, and other network appliances. I like knowing exactly where my devices should be. Keep in mind my experience as far as support has been mostly on networks with a hand full of printers.

I guess what it comes down to, is that I figure if DNS and/or DHCP go down or have some strange issue, my printers are one less thing affected by it. Static is static, end of story. The next best thing would be to reserve addresses on your DHCP server for your printers. But if you are going to do this, you might just as well make them static. Especially on large networks.

Just my thoughts.

Matt
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Missing printers in Forward lookup Zones
    ... Then printers, which cannot Authenticate with AD, will not be able to update ... This is where DHCP comes in, the DHCP server will do the ... Authentication and DNS Registrations for the printers. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.dns)
  • Re: Internal IP addresses showing up with external IPs
    ... systems, including printers, that we cannot ping any longer on our ... network, but the results from the ping come back as an external ... internal DNS and you have them set up that way (No ISP or external DNS in AD ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.dns)
  • Re: DHCP assigned addresses for Print Servers
    ... > We have a rather young engineer working for us who has setup around ... > 10-20 printers on a 200-300 node network. ... > He has decided in his young wisdom to set all the printers to DHCP. ... but in general there shouldn't be a problem in that DNS ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.networking)
  • Re: Can I use SBS 2003?
    ... for everyone including those just using DHCP and printers. ... > all networks by a Win2K server; this box also has the networked printers ... > SBS 2003 and still maintain the DHCP and network printing functionality I ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Static IPs and WRT54gs?
    ... :>> On both wired and wireless clients. ... :> Using DHCP, however, is often quite worthwhile. ... your network printers and use those names in the printers' definitions. ...
    (alt.internet.wireless)