Setting up a DHCP server on Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Update: There is now an updated version of this guide for Ubuntu 12.04: Setting up a DHCP server on Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) server.

This is my really short installation log of how I installed and configured a DHCP server on Ubuntu Hardy Heron.

1: Make sure that the latest version is installed:

sudo apt-get install dhcp3-server

Note: Don’t be alarmed if the startup fails; that’s because you haven’t configured it yet.

2.1: Edit the DHCP server configuration:

sudo nano /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf 

2.2: The contents of my configuration file, for me the comments already in the file was what I needed to make the necessary changes:

# The ddns-updates-style parameter controls whether or not the server will
# attempt to do a DNS update when a lease is confirmed. We default to the
# behavior of the version 2 packages ('none', since DHCP v2 didn't
# have support for DDNS.)
ddns-update-style none;

# option definitions common to all supported networks...
option domain-name "home.lan";
option domain-name-servers ubuntu.home.lan;

default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;

# If this DHCP server is the official DHCP server for the local
# network, the authoritative directive should be uncommented.
authoritative;

# This is a very basic subnet declaration.
subnet 10.10.10.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
  range 10.10.10.100 10.10.10.200;
  option routers router.home.lan;
}

3: Start the DHCP server (it should now start without problems):

sudo /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server start

Done 🙂