How to use external DHCP?

[fredthompson]

I have a mix of devices which ultimately connect to an Astaro firewall which is the DHCP server.

The divices are a mix of WinXp, Win7 and Linux-based media players. IPv4 is the only protocol used by the firewall. IT supports IPv6 but I'm not using it. "Guest" devices are usually WinXP, Win7 or a game device like a PS3. The firewall has a NIC address list for the permanent and frequent guest devices. Other guests must use WiFi with a password which is controlled by a dd-wrt router.

Right now, the Amahi box has DHCP turned off and it cannot see any of the other boxes nor can it see the Internet. I change its CAT5 cable to use the DNS port of the firewall when I need to get to the net.

I'd like to configure the Amahi server to accept the DHCP assignments from the Astaro firewall and periodically scan for new devices (once a minute or so.) It should act as a local DNS (I think...) so the Windows boxes can see each other in their "network neighborhood"s without modified hosts files.

How can this be done?

[radioz]

Why not just use your hda as the dns server? That is the 'normal' configuration of it.

[fredthompson]

DNS comes from the firewall right now. You are suggesting I turn that off and Astaro does the DNS. I guess that could work but Astaro would have to be on all the time. I'll see if Astaro can be a backup DNS if the Amahi box isn't working.

If Amahi is trying to act as DNS and the firewall is also DNS and DHCP, would that explain when Amahi cannot get to the Internet?

How do I configure Amahi so it is performing DNS and not DHCP?

I understand the concepts but just getting Amahi to work behind the Astaro firewall is quite frustrating because I'm not a Linux person.

[bigfoot65]

You should be able to turn off the HDA DHCP server via the dashboard. Goto settings->servers and stop it there. Also ensure you uncheck all boxes so it does not restart automatically.

If it still persists on starting on reboot, you can manually disable it as well using the chkconfig command. I have heard of issues where it will restart on it's own even though the dashboard indicates it will not. In that case, it may require additional configuration changes to watchdog or monit to prevent restart.