Defining an Apple Vendor Class
Donovan Hide
we have a network of PC's and Apples. Due to problems with OS 9.2
and OS X resolving machines within our .local namespace I am trying to
create a .mac namespace to solve this problem (thanks to Tony Sheppard
for the idea). I was wondering if it is possible to use the DHCP
Vendor Class to distribute Option 015 information to clients dependent
upon whether the DHCP client is a Mac or not.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Donovan Hide.
Herb Martin
I can tell you about the Win2000 side, but I haven't
done Macs recently (since Classes were added)
so you will have to (figure out how to) set the Macs
yourself.
On the Win2000 DHCP server, use User Classes
(you asked for a Vendor class but Microsoft
makes those and you get "User Classes")
My assumption is that a Vendor class and a
User class give interchangable results.
In DCHP, find Options (advanced I believe),
create a User class for this.
On the Macs do the EQUIVALENT of:
ipconfig /setclassid "adapter name" Test
Substitute the Mac GUI or whatever, and put
classid in where I did "Test"
Herb Martin
He...@LearnQuick.Com
Donovan Hide
thanks for the response. I am aware of the class options procedure
and that would solve the problem if I was trying to distinguish
between PC's and PC's. Unfortunately there is no iconfig /setclassid
equivalent on the Mac, at least that I know of.
As I understand it, the vendor class is returned by the operating
system when the DHCP lease is acquired. I want to be able to set the
DNS domain name (option 015) based on the vendor class sent by the OS.
This may be impossible with Windows 2000 DNS server, but it would be
good to hear of anyone's experience of trying such a thing.
Cheers,
Donovan Hide.
Herb Martin
> system when the DHCP lease is acquired. I want to be able to set the
> DNS domain name (option 015) based on the vendor class sent by the OS.
> This may be impossible with Windows 2000 DNS server, but it would be
> good to hear of anyone's experience of trying such a thing.
Try adding is as a User Class, perhaps they don't distinguish.
So you are saying, (you checked and) Macs don't have
User Classes on the client side. Macs send a vendor
class, and of course, Microsoft doesn't support adding
vendor classes?
--
Herb Martin
He...@LearnQuick.Com
"Donovan Hide" <don...@passion-pictures.com> wrote in message
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Herb Martin
Knowledge Base
PSS ID Number: Q240247
How to Create a New DHCP User or Vendor Class
ms-help://MS.TechNet.2003JAN.1033/enu_kbntrelease/en-us/ntrelease/q240247.ht
m
--
Herb Martin
He...@LearnQuick.Com
Roger Seielstad
news:56f9c387.03032...@posting.google.com:
Are the servers which the MACs are trying to resolve authoritative for the
.local domain, or are they forwarding to servers which are? Can you point
them directly to the servers which are authoritative for that zone.
While I'm at it, I'll chalk up another reason to dislike the use of non-
registerable Domain names.
--
Roger D. Seielstad
Email Geek
Donovan Hide
thanks Herb and Roger for the help. The problem I have is what data
to enter for the vendor class. As the knowledge base article
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q240247 puts
it:
"Type in the data to be used by the DHCP Server service for matching
the class ID provided by DHCP clients under ID or ASCII"
Do I need to resort to tcpdump'ing the DHCP communications between the
DHCP server and a Mac to discover the vendor option provided by Macs?
Apple have been hopeless in assisting me on this issue. They do not
support DHCP or DNS servers, not even the ones that come with OS X
server! We are in the unfortunate position that our domain is of the
form domainname.local, which is used by OS X and (undocumented) OS 9.2
as namespace for its Rendezvous (Zeroconf in the non-Mac world)
services. We cannot change the domain name with Active Directory
without starting again from scratch. Windows Server 2003, does not
solve the problem, because our schema has been changed by Exchange
Server 2000.
Being able to send out a separate domain name (Option 015), such as
domainname.mac, by DHCP, and creating that domain name in Windows 2000
DNS server with A records to the domainname.local servers IP addresses
seems like a solution.
The mystery bit is the Vendor Option data sent by Macs during the DHCP
negotiation.
Cheers,
Donovan Hide.
Herb Martin
TCPDump will work fine if you have it but most people do
not.
--
Herb Martin
He...@LearnQuick.Com
"Donovan Hide" <don...@passion-pictures.com> wrote in message
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