Managing the DHCP Server role from PowerShell: scopes, reservations, authorization, and backup

Goal

Inspect DHCP scopes and leases, create a stable reservation, confirm a server is authorized to serve a domain, and back up the DHCP configuration before making a change that could disrupt address assignment.

Prerequisites

The DhcpServer PowerShell module; Enterprise Admins rights (or delegated equivalent) to authorize a server in Active Directory; local administrator rights on the DHCP server for scope and backup operations.

Steps

1. List scopes, then their utilization: Get-DhcpServerv4Scope -ComputerName DHCP1 | Select-Object ScopeId, Name, State and Get-DhcpServerv4ScopeStatistics -ComputerName DHCP1 (free/in-use counts and percentage).
2. List current leases in a scope: Get-DhcpServerv4Lease -ComputerName DHCP1 -ScopeId 10.0.0.0.
3. Reserve an address for a known client so its IP never changes even though it uses DHCP: Add-DhcpServerv4Reservation -ComputerName DHCP1 -ScopeId 10.0.0.0 -IPAddress 10.0.0.50 -ClientId "AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF" -Description "print server". -ClientId takes the client's MAC address.
4. Confirm the server is authorized in Active Directory — an unauthorized, domain-joined Windows DHCP server does not lease addresses to clients: Add-DhcpServerInDC -DnsName dhcp1.contoso.com -IPAddress 10.0.0.5 (a no-op if already authorized; check first with Get-DhcpServerInDC).
5. Back up the full configuration before a risky change (a scope deletion, a large reservation import): Backup-DhcpServer -ComputerName DHCP1 -Path "C:\DhcpBackup".
6. For redundancy, DHCP failover pairs two servers so either can serve a scope if the other is unavailable; configuring a relationship is documented in Microsoft's DHCP Failover overview and is beyond a single-command change here — plan a load-balance or hot-standby mode deliberately rather than defaulting to one.

Expected result

Get-DhcpServerv4Scope and Get-DhcpServerv4Lease show the current allocation state; the reserved client always receives the same address; Backup-DhcpServer produces a restorable folder.

Limits and test basis

Every cmdlet here is documented in the DhcpServer PowerShell module reference; DHCP failover behavior (Load Balance versus Hot Standby mode) is documented in Microsoft's dedicated DHCP Failover article rather than a single cmdlet page, so treat setting it up as a separate, deliberate task rather than an extension of this checklist. To undo a reservation: Remove-DhcpServerv4Reservation -ComputerName DHCP1 -IPAddress 10.0.0.50. To restore from backup: Restore-DhcpServer -ComputerName DHCP1 -Path "C:\DhcpBackup", then restart the DHCP Server service (Restart-Service DHCPServer on DHCP1) for the restored configuration to take effect — plan a maintenance window, since no new leases or renewals are answered while the service restarts. -Path is a folder on the DHCP server itself.