In the many years I’ve been providing IT Services, I’ve noticed that whenever taking over a customer from a competitor, or providing consulting services for a company that has IT staff, that I don’t see DHCP reservations being used all that frequently.
I wanted to write a post and create a video to discuss the comparison, when each should be used and the various case scenarios. I’m hoping my readers may provide their own input in the comments.
See below for the video, or read on for the blog post!
As an example: When a customer was purchasing a VoIP PBX, the PBX vendor get angry when I requested that it be configured for DHCP so that a DHCP reservation could be used, I advised I’d prefer this method so I could change the IP when needed for maintenance or network restructuring. They tried to convince me the IP will change on a DHCP Server and the port forwarding will stop working, because they simply had no idea of what a DHCP reservation was. Ultimately when the day came where I had to change the IP and firewall rules for the PBX, I had to log a support call with the vendor since I couldn’t change the IP myself (which resulted in delays, and costs). If we were using DHCP reservations, I could have simply modified the firewall rules, modified the IP address on the reservation, and restarted the device using the buttons on the front panel (I didn’t have any other access to the device).
Just to state the obvious:
- A static IP address is an IP address that’s manually set on a NIC (Network Interface Card).
- A DHCP Reservation is a pre-set IP that’s provided by a DHCP Server, and given to a NIC when a NIC calls out to a DHCP server for an IP address.
Static IP Addresses
It’s in my opinion that for server, network, core, and all top level infrastructure, all of these devices and services should be configured with Static IP addresses.
These devices which are almost always running, and have other services that rely on them, require a set static IP that should and will not change. Typically, these IP addresses will never change, even when major changes are being made to the core infrastructure.
These addresses should always be logged, documented, and added to network topology maps.
An example of devices commonly seen with Static IPS:
- Servers
- Storage (SAN, NAS)
- Network Switches, Routers, Gateways, Load Balancers
- Printers
- Wireless Access Points
- Computers/Workstations using special services (or requiring firewall exceptions)
DHCP Reservations
DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, and was created to dynamically configure hosts networking configuration on the fly for easy deployment.
In it’s most simplest explanation, when a computer (or device) that is configured to use DHCP reaches out to the network, the DHCP server will assign and provide an IP address for the computer to use.
In home networks, pretty much every computer and device will get it’s IP address from the DHCP server running on the router.
In business networks, pretty much every computer and device that isn’t hosting services will get it’s IP address from the DHCP server running on one of their servers or routers.
DHCP Servers support something called a “DHCP Reservation”, which essentially allows you to provide a pre-set IP address to a specific client based on it’s physical MAC address. This means that the device will always get the same IP address and it will never change (whereas they typically do on occasion).
I’m surprised I don’t see these used more often, as they can become quite the powerful tool on the IT tool belt when used properly. I’ve listed some pros and cons below.
The Pros:
- Manage IP addresses (IP reservations) from a single console
- Ability to change IP addresses on the fly easily from a single console without having to log in to the device.
- Manage network topology for ROBO (Remote Office, Branch Office) remotely, easily, and efficiently.
- Manage IP addresses for 3rd party devices that you don’t normally have access to modify (tell the vendor to set to DHCP), reducing support calls for external services.
- Ability to create different PXE boot environments as each reservation can have it’s own PXE boot options assigned.
The Cons:
- Device must support DHCP Configuration.
- The device MUST RELY on a DHCP Server once set to use DHCP. If the DHCP Server is down, so is the device.
- If rogue DHCP servers appear on your network, it may disrupt communication (this can also happen with static IPs and conflicts).
So with the list above, DHCP reservations look pretty powerful. The next question, is where do we use DHCP reservations. Let’s finish off with the devices we’d use them on, and what use case scenarios apply.
Devices:
- Wireless Access Points
- Printers
- 2nd Level (non core) Routers and Gateways
- IoT Devices
- IP Phones
- IP PBX Systems (VoIP, Traditional with IP Management, etc).
- Thin Clients and Zero Clients
Use Cases:
- Remote Offices (remote sites with limited access)
- Remote Support environments
- Branch Offices
- IP Phone Networks
- Wireless LAN Access Point VLANs
DHCP Reservation Use Cases
I use DHCP reservations frequently with customers that have remote or branch offices in remote geographical areas. When supporting these users and troubleshooting issues, it’s awesome to be able to just log in to the DHCP server to change IP addresses of printers, phones, and wireless access points.
Also, when configuring, shipping, and deploying new devices to these offices, I can simply log and write down the MAC address, configure the DHCP reservation, and the device will get the IP address I’ve chosen once it’s connected to the network and powered on.
Using DHCP reservations, you can easily make big changes to these remote networks without having to be present. If you were to use Static IPs and something was misconfigured, this might cause a physical visit to the site to resolve.
If by change a vendor directly dropships equipment to the remote site, I can simply call someone at that office to get the MAC address. Most devices with a NIC (printers, MFPs, wireless access points), all usually have their MAC addresses printed on the outside of the box. With this information provided, I can login to the remote server, create a DHCP reservation, configure drivers, and push the device config out to the network.
DHCP reservations add to the whole concept of a centrally managed environment, which further helps ease of maintaining, and supporting it.
Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!
Very good information. Thanks for sharing.
Would you create a DHCP reservation for your network switches? I have about 15 –
Hi Kevin,
Typically static IPs would be used for switches, as they would generally always need to be accessible, even when a DHCP server is down.
There might be a few odd non-standard use cases where non-backbone switches may use reservations in remote sites, but I could only see this ever being used in geographically remote sites that aren’t easy to visit.
Stephen
Hi Kevin,
Your explanations are so easy to follow.
Thank you for not assuming that we’re all IT professionals!
Regards,
Jerry
Hi Stephen,
So sorry to address you as “Kevin”…my bad. I had just read your reply to Kevin.
Jerry
No problem Jerry! Cheers!
I’m trying to set up parental controls via a dns server. I realized that it was possible to get around the dns server by changing the dns server on each device. I’m trying to figure out how to force all devices on my network to go through the dns server I have chosen. I’ve come across port forwarding a few times but am struggling to nail down the steps to make it work. Could you possibly help me with this? Thanks in advance!
In Christ,
Kenny Sparks
Thank you for the thorough, easily understandable explanation, Kevin.
I agree whole heatedly. It’s astonishing to think that any vendor supplying network equipment wouldn’t know DHCP. I’ve known about reservations for a long while, but it’s never really been showcased as a solution. Whatever makes our lives easier I always say.
This is fantastic info, but when you are a 3rd party vendor that has the only remote access to a device, static is best. It allows for NAT IP configs as well as other VPN server options the hospitals (in my case) use. In other cases, when a reservation or reservations aren’t documented properly, remote access becomes a problem when DNS and anything else is changed. Obviously this can happen with static as well, if the hospital doesn’t notify the 3rd party of the changes, however, this is generally, at least in my teams experience not the case. Hope that improves things.
I follow basic rules for when to use static IPs and DHCP reservations:
1) Router or Core switch – Static IP
2) Server – Static IP
3) All other infrastructure is DHCP w/reservations (switches, APs, printers, cameras, DVRs, time clocks, appliances, etc)
I contemplated using DHCP for most servers, but since DHCP servers have to be static and some applications might have problems if an IP changes unexpectedly (like due to a DHCP server failure or even a bad switch vLAN change), I decided to keep all servers static.
I’ve had many vendors tell me they don’t support DHCP, but 100% of the time they don’t understand DHCP w/reservations is effectively the same as a static IP. I’ve never come across a device connected to the network that doesn’t support DHCP even though I’ve been told by a vendor on multiple occasions their equipment doesn’t support it. I do not budge on this, and force them to learn their equipment better. I’m sure something exists out there that doesn’t support DHCP, but do I really want to use something with that bad of a network implementation? What else can’t it do?
The cons are minimal and can mostly be mitigated via a robust DHCP server infrastructure.
1) DHCP server must be available – Redundant DHCP Servers make this robust
2) Nothing can interfere with requests between client and server
This one is obvious, but the only problem I’ve had in the past 15 years using DHCP reservations was our MPLS provider all of a sudden stopped passing DHCP requests from one site to our data center. The work-around was to install a local DHCP server with the reservations defined until the problem was resolved. Once the provider fixed the problem, I just re-pointed the routers to the data center DHCP servers again.
3) A rogue DHCP server can cause problems. It’s pretty quick to identify this is happening and doesn’t take long to find it. If you disable or isolate unused switch ports, then this has very little chance of happening.
It’s important your lease times are long enough to give you time to respond to DHCP server problems.
The pros are massive:
1) All IPs are authoritatively documented in DHCP (minus routers and servers). This makes managing the IP space so much easier. I put in dummy reservations for servers just so DHCP includes those as well.
2) There is almost no chance of an IP conflict
3) Infrastructure setup can be done in one location (like corporate) and moved to its final destination without any reconfiguration required. It’s convenient to setup switches, APs, and printers at corporate while on the network, and as soon as you plug them in at the remote location they just work (setup the IP reservation ahead of time).
4) Reconfiguration of IP scheme is trivial. I’ve done this many times to correct poor IP schemes I’ve inherited, and by setting the lease time to 5 minutes before the change, all devices pull new IP information almost immediately. If there’s a mistake on vLANing, the correct IP will be pulled in only a few minutes once fixed. When the project is complete, set the lease times back to normal values.
5) It’s trivial to replace a device because there will never be an IP conflict. Modify the IP reservation when it’s time for the new device to be installed, and the new device will take over the IP and the old device can still be connected if necessary as it will just pull a random IP at this point (or a set IP if you want to setup another reservation).
6) The IP scope range can be used more efficiently because IPs are managed centrally on the back-end, and it’s not reliant on devices being configured with the correct IP. I never have to guess what device has what IP and wonder if something was set to the wrong IP. I can look at my DHCP server to know what’s what.
7) If you need to make a default gateway change (either temporary or permanent), it’s trivial. This has come up before because we needed to change the destination of traffic outgoing from a location temporarily while service was being performed on the primary equipment. It’s an unusual event because normal redundancy usually addresses problems like this, but I’ve had larger failures to deal with that required temporary installations to cover until repairs to utility infrastructure is completed. Once the repair is done, updating the default gateway again gets everything flowing properly.
I’m an adamant supporter/enthusiast for DHCP reservations. 🙂
Ben, you’re awesome! Thanks for contributing to the discussion! Excellent advice!
Hi Steven,
If a device has a static IP address should that address be included in the DHCP Scope, and then ‘dummy reserved’ out, or should the static IP address be outside the DHCP Server Scope?
Say the network is not too big – can I set a scope of 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.99, then Fix the IP addresses of my Printers, Accesspoints etc into the 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.150 range, say, which won’t require any reservations as the fixed IP devices wont request IP addresses anyway, or should I Fix the IP addresses inside the scope, and just give them reservations, so no other device is accidentally given the address belonging to a fixed device. The advantage I see for the second method is that the connected devices all exist within the DHCP scope, and can be documented.
Thanks for your article – just wondering about best practice – pros and cons of the two methods.
Hi Robin,
For best practice, I wouldn’t recommend using Static IPs inside of the DHCP pool range. For example, you’d want to have your DHCP range from .100 to .199 and then have your servers in .10 to .19 and printers from .20 to .30, etc… It just avoids problems…
As for DHCP reservations, you can have those within or outside of your DHCP scope.
Cheers,
Stephen
This exercise asks you to create a DHCP reservation on the current scope, to ensure one of our servers will have the same IP assigned to it.
Create a reservation on your DHCP server to ensure that one of your servers (for instance SRV02) will always have the same IP assigned to it. We want to assign ip 10.1.1.200, for instance
Once you create the reservation print the output of the command:
Get-DhcpServerv4Reservation -ComputerName “dhcp01” -IPAddress 10.1.1.200 | fl *, (the IP is merely for illustration purposes)
kindly answer me asap.
[…] Static IP vs DHCP Reservation […]
Hi, is there a way to reserve a range of IP addresses for specific manufacturers? I have 15 Hickvision security cameras, currently configured for static IP. I would like to reserve a DHCP IP range on X.X.X.180-199. So I know the cameras will always be in this scope, by the same token I could have all my Apple devices in X.X.X.150-170 … etc.
Thanks
MS best practice is to use Dual DHCP servers with either fail over or load balance and use DHCP reservations vs setting static IPs now for servers. The only thing you set static is core networking / hypervisors / routers
THANK YOU! It’s sadly “acceptable” to interchange these terms. I have to just cringe and let it go, I’ve even seen a router with a “Static DHCP” settings. wtf- static – dynamic, that’s really sad.
Could you explain what “hard wired” explicitly means?!? An RJ45 port – removable jack is not hard wired! A removable is not a hard wired connection… yet so many “tutorials” interchange these as well
I believe people just use the term “hard wired” in reference to a hardware wired network connection, versus something like wireless.
One subtle disagreement: You said “The device MUST RELY on a DHCP Server once set to use DHCP. If the DHCP Server is down, so is the device.” Not quite true, as many devices can utilize a self-assignment method for addresses when no static address is configured and the device is set for DHCP service. Windows calls this Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA). OS X also does the same thing (not sure what it’s called there).
APIPA addresses will be self-generated in the private IP range 169.254.0.0 to 169.254.255.255, with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0
To the uninitiated, this can be very confusing and pointless. But it’s actually pretty cool because it allows the creation of ad-hoc networks: Just plug two (or more) computers into each other, and they will have a functioning network between them. Think file sharing here for example.
The other thing is a machine with a self-assigned address can easily be found on your LAN by using IPCONFIG, a scanner, or looking at ARP tables.
Self-assigned addresses are also noteworthy in that if your computer has one, it means it cannot find a viable DHCP server on your network,
Hey Joseph,
Thanks for the post with all the information!
Cheers,
Stephen
Great post! I could not agree more with the position taken here. DHCP Reservation plays a huge role in effect network IT management and most importantly, network performance! Those not using this method of IP assignment are truly missing out and wasting time.
[…] Information on Static IP vs DHCP Reservation (https://www.stephenwagner.com/2019/05/07/static-ip-vs-dhcp-reservation/) […]
I’ve been using DHCP reserved for years as a simple way to permit clients by MAC address and block all others.
Setting appropriate and reasonable DHCP lease times for mixed type of clients — such as an hour for short-term clients versus a week for others — is often not possible on the gateway / DHCP server.
Perhaps some routers permit different lease periods for DHCP reserved clients; but from my experience both true dynamic and reserved dynamic expire at the provided period.
In the last 5 years, the D-link Wireless routers Ive worked with — and possibly other brands — often fail when the DHCP lease period expires on the DSL or cable modem. Sometimes its works; sometimes it doesn’t. In many cases the Wireless router needs to be rebooted. Which causes a mess for the connected WiFi clients.
I’m curious why the D-link isn’t notified by the DHCP server and simply gets the same address again within MICROSECONDS. Or maybe it is and the actual issue is the WiFi router is failing it’s clients.
My actiontec centerylink router uses DHCP reservations and over time the accumulation of those reservations slowed up the internet from 40 mbps down to 7mbps. By clearing reservations 7 to 40 instantly. Thoughts? Maybe I should use static in my practice.
Hi Jim,
Technically the use of reservations should not effect your internet speed.
For everything other than an Active Directory Domain Controller, I prefer to set up servers with DHCP Reservations. As you outlined, it is easier to centrally manage services you want to provide to these systems (via DHCP Options), updating addresses for whatever reason, such as if network configs need to be changed (i.e. subnet / VLAN migrations), having a central record of addresses on the network, migrating services from one server to the other while keeping the same address, etc. Also, configuring HA DHCP (High Availability) allows me to keep everything configured and provide addressing services while I do a migration, upgrade, or in the event of a failure.
In the world of printer management, if a device fails and you are replacing it with the same hardware model, simply swapping out the MAC in the DHCP Reservation, print services easily migrate without having to figure out a printer UI.
On systems that support it, I will set a “fallback” IP in the event DHCP services fail for some reason.
All of that said, some networks that I help administrate have dedicated IT staffing and sometimes they desire statics. I think due to fear of having the network crash due to a DHCP server failure (again, HA is beneficial here) and they are not comfortable with leaving the “old” way of configuring services.
For network devices, I will have a Management interface / VLAN configured with a static in a large subnet (for example, a /16) as a default VLAN. This makes routes and ACLs easier to configure and allows me to access these devices without any server-based core network infrastructure services.
Great post, and I hope more people will begin adopting the simpler design of DHCP and reservations.
Thanks for the writeup . I had a follow-on question. I always struggle with hostname resolution within my router (att). Now any programs I use will resolve it just fine (typically Putty, WinSCP, etc, even at the command line. But being a techie, I like to know why the heck it’s not working. My experience says that by setting a reservation rather than static ip, you are still utilizing DHCP, but resolution happens with DNS. So Am I missing something?
Hi Don,
So this is a tough one because it’s dependent on the setup, hardware, and software.
If the DHCP and DNS software is connected, then by creating a DHCP reservation, it may automatically create an A HOST record in DNS for the reservation. There’s also a chance it will create an accompanying reserve DNS entry as well.
Keep in mind this all depends on the router vendor, what DHCP and DNS servers they are using, and if they are integrated.
I could be wrong, but I think some routers also use a single service/daemon that actually provides both DHCP and DNS from a single service.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Stephen
Hello Stephen,
i have a client who has two physical lan networks ,in two different locations ,with the same IP Range , interconnected with a fibre optic cable. The result being a single logical network with two routers both having DHCP servers enabled and having the same IP range. This is necessary, because if in any case the optic link fails both physical networks have to operate their own individual network\ systems without interruption.
But the problem is there are IP conflicts, despite DHCP reservations for specific systems in the respective routers. Certain systems get an automatic IP within the 169.254.X.X range and fail to communicate. Also there are separate Internet Connections at both locations.
Is there a work around , while maintaining the routers in the two physical locations .
I have thought about using two different logical networks with static routes assigned, but am not sure about it working. will i able to ensure communication between systems on the two different networks, as if there are on the same lan network (All the computers are windows systems, there are also Tablets and mobiles connected via wifi). But here arises another problem both physical locations have thier own servers , and the custom designed softwares requires the servers have each have a static IP that falls in the same IP range 192.168.0.X . This was set by the firm that did the software.
is there any other alternative work around.
Thanks,
Anselm
Hi Anselm,
There’s a big flaw in your network design.
If you’re using switches at both locations, with a fiber cable connecting them, then you should have only 1 router. Technically you could have 2 routers and it would be sloppy, but you should only have 1 DHCP server per subnet. This is why you are getting IP conflicts.
You make the comment “This is necessary, because if in any case the optic link fails both physical networks have to operate their own individual network\ systems without interruption.”. This isn’t actually necessary.
The proper configuration would be to have 2 different subnets at each location, each with their own router and DHCP. Then, route the different subnets in both locations. This would avoid any issues, put the different physical networks on their own subnets, allow you to customize IP allocation (since you can have a DHCP server on each side), and is the proper design. It would also allow you to configure custom routes for each subnet so you can specific which location uses what internet connection.
Cheers,
Stephen
Hi Stephen,
Thanks for the advice on using two different subnets. One of my concerns in doing so, is would a user on a computer on one subnet be able to browse the shared drives/folders on a computer on the other subnet , without having to manually type the IP address of the target system( Network Discovery being turned on in all the systems). Is it necessary to use a VLan for this . or i can i avoid that.
Thanks,
Anselm
Hi Anselm,
If you’re using Active Directory and/or DNS, you shouldn’t have any issues with network shares, accessing them, using them, etc… Using multiple subnets with routers is standard practice because of the limitations of how many devices or computers you can have in a single subnet.
As for your question about using a VLAN, I’m not sure why you’d want to use one, but technically you could if you had the requirement. What I would recommend would be to configure a router and route the subnets.
Cheers,
Stephen
My company has chosen to try and mitigate security by using up all of the DHCP addresses in the scope to only allow a couple of free DHCP leases to be grabbed. If a reservation exists with a specific IP address and someone adds a computer using a static IP address with the same IP as the reservation, there will be an IP conflict. Which one will win? Which computer gets access to the network and which one just gets an error message about IP conflict and doesn’t gain access?
Hi Chris,
What vulnerability are you trying to mitigate, I’m somewhat confused by your statement or what you’re trying to achieve?
As for your question, it depends on how it’s detected or forced. Normally the computer that’s connecting 2nd will notice the conflict and decide to back off, but this can be forced. Also, there’s nothing stopping anyone from just using a different static IP and accessing the network.
Cheers,
Stephen
Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense to me either, but my boss seems to think this ensures that he knows what machines are on our network. I personally think that something like the Cisco Identity Services Engine would be the best way to go.
HI Chris,
This would do absolutely nothing for security, and wouldn’t provide any visibility in to what devices are on the network. DHCP is only for providing client configuration, nothing as far as network access or security.
You’d need something else like NPS or the like, which would require authentication before granting access to the network.
Cheers,
Stephen
By the way, thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly. I really do appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Chris
hello
good day Sir
question. How to know if any computer has reservated ip ? note: i can not check dhcp server because i dont have acesss , any suggestions? . only i know that computer does not have ip static because check NIC
thx in advance
sorry my english is bad
Cristal clear, great expalnation and examples. Thank you, Stephen!
Hello Sirs
May I know what is the different between DHCP Reservation (active) and Reservation (inactive)?
Regards
Simon
Hi Simon,
I would need to know the exact context, but I’m assuming that an inactive DHCP reservation, is a reservation that is configured, however the client hasn’t contacted the DHCP server to retrieve it.
Whereas an active DHCP reservation, is a reservation that is active because the DHCP client has connected and retrieved it.
Cheers,
Stephen
In the last years I have seen many and many devices changing their mac address at some point, be it an iphone with “privacy feature” enabled, to set top boxes, ip cameras etc… in such cases reserved ip gets lost, devices are still present and working but on different addresses. It gets confusing at some point. I think manufacturers or software and firmware developers should not allow such mac spoofin so easily, they give for granted that MAC are not revelant to end users but that’s not true, even a small “smart” home with plugs, TVs, smart speakers lights etc… has its complex infrastructure based on fixes addresses.
so Best Practice, my understanding and please correct me if wrong….
1. Create a DHCP Scope that does not include Core Switches, Servers, Gateways
2. Create reservations using MAC Addresses for Printers, WAP’s, VoIP phones, cameras, Core Desktops and anything else that may want static ip and is not core infrastructure.
3. Reservations can be inside or outside the DHCP Scope,
I have one newly installed device that I cannot Ping. Created Reservation as per instructed, and still cannot get this to “talk” through the network. This is a type of PA Gateway. Installers says its my network. Suggestion to troubleshoot to get the device to “talk” through the network? I have found no reset button.
I have been using this myself for a specific use case.
1. Many homeworkers are remoting using simple hardware, to leverage the real hardware in the office for heavy graphics work.
2. Masquerading can cause issues with multiple remotes at the same time with this software (especially with double nat) that works better using direct snat/dnat translation (currently 98% gigabit throughput via double nat via a gigabit WAN & LAN setup).
3. This is a home business where they have a home private use need, but also two business networks within, that need to be not only isolated form the public network but also from the private home network who have …guests…. shall we say. This required a double NAT setup, that was still remote capable.
For this I use a /16 network for the private use, but 2 /24 networks within for business use. This also necessitates its own business wifi AP as two vlans that needed to tunnel through that private network.
Anyway, to get to the point, I needed to ensure the heavy load PCs had not only dedicated IPs but SNAT/DNAT was directly associated with those IPs (always), that would be easy to manage/administer, but would never be given to anything else.
Note that the remote software used, relies upon the establised/related aspect of the firewalls and internal instigation only, via an intermediary security service.
That meant ‘static reservations ‘outside of’ the DHCPs auto allocation range’, but within the network scope of the /24 network that the DHCP server(s) could access/control.
Where the firewalled /24 addresses are relayed to /16 addresses on the private network that is firewalled from the public network.
I was however browsing to see if ip reservations ‘outside’ of the dhcp auto range, was accepted/standard practice and ‘working as intended’ by DHCP. So, good stuff. Thanks.
A good point made here…..
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/services/dhcp/mappings-in-pools.html
I guess another way to look at it is the pass the buck problem.
The installer, never input a static IP, relying upon a net admin configuring DHCP reservations.
The net admin, never set a static mapping in the DHCP, expecting the intaller to manually set a static one.
Thats where you get the meme about the word ‘ass-u-me’.
If both are done, does it matter ?
Is the device going to fail to get the expected address, that someone somewhere expected it to get, as long as at least one of the above done their job properly ?
😉
Thank you for this article; it and the comments have helped clarify my thinking for my homelab.
With regards what to DHCP reserve vs what to Static IP, I would say (& I’m running) use static IPs for everything the DNS/DHCP server depends on to get running, and everything else (after that) uses DHCP reservation.
So, if a network runs everything through the internet modem/router, that is the only device with a static IP.
If a network has a router plus a core switch, and the DNS/DHCP is run from the core switch, the router & the core switch use static IPs.
Or, if DNS/DHCP is run from pihole (or adguard etc), the router, core switch, and DNS/DHCP hardware server have static IPs.
(I could go on…)
Lastly, “document” the static IPs by duplicating their configuration in the DHCP reservation.
Cheers