By José C. Nieves Pérez

It’s not necessary to add your servers to the DHCP reservation list if you’ve already excluded their IP addresses from the DHCP scope. Excluding the IP addresses ensures that those specific addresses won’t be assigned by the DHCP server to any device, including your servers. However, if you were to remove those exclusions at some point in the future, your servers would still retain their current IP addresses because they have static IP addresses assigned to them.

Adding the servers to the reservation list can provide an additional layer of redundancy in case you accidentally remove the exclusions. There shouldn’t be any conflicts with having both IP addresses in the reservation and exclusion list since the exclusion list takes precedence over the reservation list.

Overall, it’s up to your personal preference on whether or not to add your servers to the DHCP reservation list. If you’re concerned about accidentally removing the exclusions, then adding them to the reservation list can provide peace of mind. However, it’s not necessary since the exclusions already prevent the DHCP server from assigning those IP addresses to any device.

The best practice is to have a consistent and well-documented approach to IP address management. In this case, it’s recommended to use a combination of DHCP exclusions and static IP addresses for servers and other devices that require a fixed IP address.

DHCP exclusions should be used for any IP addresses that should not be assigned by the DHCP server, such as static IP addresses for servers and network devices. This helps ensure that those IP addresses are always available for the devices that need them.

For devices that require a fixed IP address, such as servers and network devices, it’s best to use static IP addresses. This ensures that the devices always have the same IP address and avoids the potential for IP address conflicts.

Additionally, it’s important to document the IP addresses and their allocation, including which devices are assigned static IP addresses and which addresses are excluded from the DHCP scope. This can help with troubleshooting, network management, and future planning.

In summary, the best practice is to use a combination of DHCP exclusions and static IP addresses, along with thorough documentation of IP address allocation.