How to set the boot server address with a DHCP server

  1. Install a DHCP server. Your broadband router (Linksys, D-Link, Buffalo or whatever) has a DHCP server in it. If you can specify Option 66 on it, you are in luck. I have an Apple Airport Extreme router, and I was unable to find a way to specify Option 66. So I disabled that DHCP server, and loaded one onto the boot server. The one I used was DHCPsrv, a free Windows-based program written by Uwe Ruttkamp.
  2. It may be impossible to turn off the DHCP server on your router. There appears to be no way to do it on the Apple Airport Extreme. I got around this by restricting the the range of addresses that the Airport gives out to a single address and reserving that address to a dummy MAC address. This is a terrible kluge, but seems to work adequately.
  3. DHCPsrv is easy to set up – you just edit its .ini file. To specify a boot server for the phone you have to add an entry in the section headed [General]. My boot server address is 192.168.1.10, so here’s what I put:
    • For FTP add the following line to the [General] section of dhcpsrv.ini:

      OPTION_66=”192.168.1.10″ ;

      note the trailing semi-colon.

    • For TFTP add the following line to the [General] section of dhcpsrv.ini:

      OPTION_66=”tftp://192.168.1.10″ ;

      again, note the trailing semi-colon.

  4. Restart DHCPsrv.exe by double clicking on it in the system tray. If you can’t see it there double click on its filename in Explorer.
  5. Remember to add DHCPsrv.exe to your Windows Firewall list of permitted applications.
  6. Unplug the phone power cord and plug it in again. The screen says Welcome, 12 seconds to reboot. A couple of minutes later the screen says Welcome, then the screen starts flashing Monday, January 1, 12:00AM. If it takes more than 2 minutes to get here, something is wrong.

2 Replies to “How to set the boot server address with a DHCP server”

  1. Hi,

    Thanks! I have the following:

    I would like to configure the phone with boot server specs from a config file.

    Like: It gets the first parameters from dhcp for boot server A.
    At the boot server A it receives config for bootsrver B
    It saves the parameters for boot server B in the phone, as if entered by hand on the phone.

    Then the phone is transfered to destination and gets right config from bootsrevr B.

    Any advise appreceated.

    Kind regards, Ronald Geerligs

  2. I don’t know, but I would start by looking in the IP650 Administrator’s Guide in the section called “Flash Parameter Configuration.” I haven’t tried it, but it looks to me as though the parameter labeled “device.prov.serverName” is what you are looking for.

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