Authorize a DHCP Server in AD DS

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can use this procedure to authorize a DHCP server in AD DS.

Membership in the Domain Admins group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. Review the details in "Additional considerations" in this topic.

To authorize a DHCP server in AD DS

  1. Open DHCP.

  2. In the console tree, click DHCP.

  3. On the Action menu, click Manage authorized servers.

    The Manage Authorized Servers dialog box appears.

  4. Click Authorize.

  5. When prompted, type the name or IP address of the DHCP server to be authorized, and then click OK.

Additional considerations

For a DHCP server to be authorized in an Active Directory domain environment, you must first be logged on as a member of the Enterprise Admins group for the enterprise where the server is being added.

This procedure is usually only needed if you are running a DHCP server on a member server. In most cases, if you are installing a DHCP server on a computer also running as a domain controller, the server is automatically authorized the first time you add the server to the DHCP console.

The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the DHCP server cannot exceed 64 characters. If the FQDN of the DHCP server exceeds 64 characters, the attempt to authorize the server fails with the error message, "A constraint violation has occurred." If your DHCP server FQDN exceeds 64 characters, authorize the server using the IP address of the server instead of its FQDN.