New DHCP Server detected

[will.oneal]

I got an alert today:

The switch in the network School Building detected a new DHCP server with the following details:

MAC:	00:18:0a:xx:xx:xx
IP:	10.10.40.2
VLAN:	1
Subnet:	0.0.0.0/0

The MAC address says it's is the known, one and only Meraki Firewall that has been on the network since initial setup. Nothing was physically changed. unplugged, and nothing noted in the Change log to cause this. Last entry on the change log was 3 days ago.

Is this a real error, or a false error? If it's real, how do I track it down?

[Philip D'Ath · Accepted solution]

If you know if is the firewall then don't worry about it.

Perhaps you had a firmware update recently and it is caused it to look again.

[jpena2]

As mentioned, I wouldn't worry about it. If you want to be absolutely certain that there isn't another DHCP server on your LAN, run a PCAP on the LAN port and look for any DHCP activity (filter is 'bootp')

[samsackl]

Are you sure you haven't changed the MX from Bridge to NAT mode or turned on DHCP on any of the configured VLANs? Also, the MX has the ability to relay DHCP requests, so while you haven't changed anything on the MX, but yet it a network DHCP server might have come up. I suggest you take a pcap and analyze this in more details. Here is a link for DHCP relay on the MX: https://documentation.meraki.com/MX-Z/DHCP/DHCP_Services#DHCP_relay