I am trying to setup two DHCP servers one as the primary and the other as a secondary. I have applied the configuration listed below and the DHCP servers are not responding to DHCP request from clients. The ultimate goal is to have the secondary pick up if the primary DHCP goes down. Has anyone configured DHCP this way? If so can you help me?


dhcpd.conf
Primary
failover peer "dhcp-failover" {
primary; # declare this to be the primary server
address 10.10.1.2;
port 620;
peer address 10.10.1.3;
peer port 619;
max-response-delay 30;
max-unacked-updates 10;
load balance max seconds 3;
mclt 1800;
split 128;
}

subnet 10.10.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 10.10.1.20 10.10.1.20;
}
host PC2 {
hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:02;
fixed-address 10.10.1.20; }
host PC3 {
hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:03;
fixed-address 10.10.1.25; }

--------------------------------------------
dhcpd.conf
Secondary
failover peer "dhcp-failover" {
secondary; # declare this to be the secondary server
address 10.10.1.3;
port 619;
peer address 10.10.1.2;
peer port 620;
max-response-delay 30;
max-unacked-updates 10;
load balance max seconds 3;
}

subnet 10.10.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 10.10.1.20 10.10.1.20;
}

host PC2 {
hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:02;
fixed-address 10.10.1.20; }
host PC3 {
hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:03;
fixed-address 10.10.1.25; }

Why do you think the conf files are relevant? Have you checked if the processes are running? Have you checked the messages file? Have you checked your firewall settings?

I don’t know that the conf files are relevant or not. I posted them to let people know what I have done so far. I have check the message file (/var/log/messages) and I can't find anything useful. I wasn't sure how to permanently open firewall ports on Linux so I haven’t done anything with the ports yet. Can you provide me a quick guide on how to open ports?