DHCP on Windows 2008 Server R2 Event ID 1056

On Monday of this week I moved DHCP and DNS from an older backup server that died. DHCP worked great on the new server until Wednesday. A power outage occurred Wednesday afternoon and most of the network clients did not come back online. After diagnosing the issue I noticed DHCP failed to start properly on the new server. I started the service manually and noted that the service was not set to automatic start.

After reviewing the event logs I found a problem with DHCP. The event read, "The DHCP service has detected that it is running on a domain controller and has no credentials configured for use with Dynamic DNS registrations initiated by the DHCP service." I had a bit of a DUH! moment here since I've dealt with the issue before on other networks.

The fix is to add DNS credentials for DHCP. The repair can be performed at the command line or using the DHCP manager in the OS.

Using the DHCP manager
Start -- Administrative Tools -- DHCP
Right-click the IPv4 or IPv6 subheading
Select Properties
Select the Advanced tab
Select credentials
Put any user with domain user privileges
Click OK
Start -- type services.msc in the search box -- hit enter
Scroll down to DHCP
Right-click -- select restart
Should be good to go

Using the command-line (pretty much word-by-word from Microsoft KB282001
type netsh, and then press ENTER.

Type dhcp server ipaddress ENTER.
set dnscredentials username domain password
type quit, hit enter

You can also restart the DHCP server from the command-line with the following commands.
net stop dhcpserver

net start dhcpserver