I often need to add a Vendor Class (Option 066) to define vendor specific settings to be sent to the endpoints in question. Typically this used to be rather a pain and often a little confusing, especially since you don’t set this up every day.

Finally with the release of Windows 2016, DHCP has matured to the extent that you are able to define policies dependent on other criteria. In this case I will explain how you can send specific option settings based on a vendor class.

My scenario includes two IP Phone variants, Yealink and V-Tech.

First I will define the Vendor Classes. The I will create a policy. The policy will look for Vendor Class matches, if a match is found then specific options will be sent to the IP phone.

From the DHCP Server, right click IP-V4 (of course you can do IP-V6 if that’s what you are running). Select Define Vendor Classes

Click Add

Give your new Vendor Class a Display Name. In this example I am adding Yealink IP Phones. It is important to note that the ASCII value needs to be the Vendor Class as specified by the device vendor, in the case on Yealink IP Phones its simply yealink (lower case)

You will now see Yealink appear as a new vendor class (I have also added V-Tech which is another IP Phone brand I will be using, vendor class for the V-Tech phones)

Next, we will define a Policy that simply matches the vendor classes we want as a condition, then applying specific class options to the matched vendor classes.

For the Scope in question, right click on Policies and select New Policy

Give your Policy a Name and Description if needed, Click Next

Since I plan to have 2 vendor classes as conditions, I will set this as an OR condition (so it matched Yealink OR V-Tech) by selecting the OR Radio button, then click Add

Select the criteria as Vendor Class, Operator as Equals and choose the required vendor class. Click Add and Ok

You should now see the selected Vendor class as in the image below

We now add the second vendor class to our criteria, same as we just did before. This time I am selecting V-Tech (my other IP Phone variant)

We should now see both selected Vendor classes as per the screenshot. Click Next to proceed.

I won’t be handing out any specific IP addressing for my IP Phones recognized by the vendor classes, so I select the No radio button followed by Next

The DHCP Scope option I’d like to associate with my Vendor Classes is Option 066 – Boot Server Host Name, this is a Standard Option. Specify the String Value and Click Next.

NOTE: The String Value is the TFTP Boot Server and will depend on the location and platform you are working with.

Complete the Policy by clicking Finish

If you now navigate to the DHCP Options for Scope you have just created the Policy for, you should see the Option with associated policy Name like the screen shot.

You should now be good to go.