Question regarding migrating the dhcpd.leases file for ISC-DHCP-SERVER

**Sniperm4n** · May 21st, 2013

Backstory: I am in the process of replacing a SINGLE Debian 3.1 (Sarge) ISC-DHCP-SERVER (v3.0.1) with 2 Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x64 servers running ISC-DHCP-SERVER (v4.1-ESV-R4) in failover mode. I've been unable to find the answer to this on Google, and my internal testing on an empty subnet has yielded interesting results (please note I'm relatively new to Linux):

Here are my 3 questions:

1) Should I copy the dhcpd.leases and dhcpd.leases~ files from my Debian server to /var/lib/dhcp/ on both of the new servers and then start the DHCP services? Will the files then balance themselves?

2) Should I copy the dhcpd.leases and dhcpd.leases~ files to /var/lib/dhcp/ on only the primary failover server, and let the secondary server generate one from scratch after the DHCP services have been started?

3) Should I not bother copying the files at all, and let the 2 new Ubuntu servers generate the files from scratch in /var/lib/dhcp/?

TIA!
-Snipe

**lykwydchykyn** · May 21st, 2013

Is there any reason you want to have the clients keep the same leases?

**Sniperm4n** · May 22nd, 2013

Originally Posted by lykwydchykyn

Is there any reason you want to have the clients keep the same leases?

Hey,

We don't care if the clients keep the same leases, as long as they successfully get leases. Please note we're running a mixed Windows and Linux environment.

Thanks,
-Snipe

**SeijiSensei** · May 22nd, 2013

Then you don't need the leases file. It doesn't matter what the clients are running.

**lykwydchykyn** · May 22nd, 2013

I agree. I think you'll be best off letting the server do its own leases file. Trying to migrate one from a different server and version is asking for trouble.