SBS 2008 – How to Change the Server’s IP Address

With SBS 2003 we had the Change IP Wizard to make any of the required changes to DNS, DHCP, and other services if there was a need to change the server’s IP.

In the case of SBS 2008, there is no such wizard. So, how do we make the required changes then?

SBS 2008 IP Post Install – No Answer File (router found)

The process is actually quite simple:

1. Start –> ncpa.cpl [Enter]
2. Right click on the server NIC and Properties.
3. Click Continue when the UAC prompt comes up.
4. Double click on Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
5. Set the new IP address: 192.168.40.254 (in our example)
6. Click OK.
7. Click OK again.
8. Double click on the server NIC to bring up the Connection Status.
9. Click the Details button.
10. The IPv4 IP Address should be the new server IP.
11. Click the Close button twice.

The new IP address is set:

IPv4 IP Address: 192.168.40.254

The next step in this process is to run the Fix My Network wizard:

1. Open the SBS Console.
2. Click Continue on the UAC.
3. Click the Network tab.
4. Click the Connectivity tab.
5. Click the Fix My Network link.
6. Run through the wizard steps.
7. Once complete click Finish.

This is what will be seen once the wizard completes its tasks:

FMNW – Items fixed.

Note that the Internet gateway appliance does not have uPnP enabled, so an error shows on the Wizard’s attempt to configure it.

From there, check the DNS and DHCP services to make sure that the DNS records and DHCP scope options are set correctly. There may be a root DNS A record pointing to the old server IP in the SBSDomain Forward Lookup Zone folder, it is safe to delete it.

One of the recommended SBS 2008 set up steps in our SBS 2008 Blueprint book is to enable record scavenging on the Forward Lookup Zones. If that step is done, any stale records would be removed by the scavenging process at the time interval that we indicated. Even with this setting enabled though, it is a good idea to purge any references in DNS to the SBS server’s old IP.

One of the things we learned to do when we managed our own Internet DNS records internally was to set the SOA serial number to the year, date, and a series of zeros to notarize any direct DNS changes we make:

DNS SOA: YearMonthSerial - YYYYMM0000

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac!

Windows Live Writer