How to: Migrate DHCP reservations between servers

Are you trying to find a way that allows you to migrate DHCP Reservations from one Windows server to an other?  Look no further, as I’ve found the solution for you (and a few millions before me, but who cares, really?)

Today, I wrapped up the migration of SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 when I realized that I really didn’t want to add all the DHCP reservations we use manually.  So I did some googling, and found a solution.  After some experimenting, I came up with the following.

The requirements for this to work are simple:

1)  The Source and Target server must be members of the same domain.

2)  You must log in w/ an account that has sufficient rights for both servers, like a domain admin account. 

The steps to follow

1.  Log in to the target server.

2.  Open a command window (you know, the creepy black box) and type the following:

netsh dhcp server (I.P of Source Server) scope (DHCP Scope of Source Server) dump>sometextfile.txt

As usual, you’ll have to provide your own info

  • I.P of Source server: IP of the server where the reservations are available
  • DHCP Scope of Source server:  this is  the address range scope.  You can find it easily when opening the DHCP MMC
  • sometextfile.txt should be replaced by your own file name; of course.

Live example:  netsh dhcp server 192.168.0.126 scope 192.168.0.0 dump>reservations.txt

3.  Open the file you just created; and use find / replace.  Replace the IP address of the source server w/ the IP adres of the target server; and save the file.

4.  In the command window, type the following command:

exec c:\pathtotextfileyoujustcreated

You’ll now see how the reservations are being loaded into the target server! 

3 thoughts on “How to: Migrate DHCP reservations between servers”

  1. Pingback: my domain can’t access any network. ads is working and dhcp is working.? | Network solutions, security and support

  2. Great tip. Just notice the last command should read “netsh exec c:\pathtotextfileyoujustcreated”

    R.

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