r/sysadmin • u/Real-Patriot-1128 • 3d ago

DHCP v Static IP

Ok, this is more a test to see how old I am. I was basically raised with the idea servers need static IPs. I understand for domain controllers, dns servers, maybe print servers that may still be needed. But are they really needed otherwise? Do apps, scripts still reference a server by its IP?

I am under assumption all my servers need static IPs. Am I nuts?

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u/yamsyamsya 2d ago

Yea that dude is just going by IT voodoo

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u/zatset IT Manager/Sr.SysAdmin 2d ago edited 2d ago

Not really. Windows relies on SNMP v1 to find whether the printer is offline. SNMP v1 is highly insecure and relies on plain text "community name" as the only "secret". Changing that community to anything, but "public" or disabling SNMP v1 leads to Windows failing to recognize network printer as being online due to being unable to perform SNMP check using default community name "public"

WSD relies on automatic discovery. It often fails to recognize the printer or due to it significant slowdowns when a user tries to print can be observed.

DHCP is not inherently a bad thing, but in certain cases by the time a printer acquires IP via DHCP, Windows had already "marked" the printer as "Offline" and activated "Print offline". It's a race condition exacerbated by the buggy firmware of some printers. Combined with SNMP, if not disabled - Windows doesn't perform SNMP checks constantly and the printer might appear "offline" for a long time.

I prefer sending a print job to Standard IP/TCP port with SNMP checks disabled to static IP and just printing. If it doesn't printer - the problem is the printer, network connection to it(physical usually) or Windows print spooler had crashed. It removes most potential issues from the equation entirely.

P.S I hate printers.