To recover existing IP configuration information directly from an existing network in response to DHCP server failure, unique identifiers corresponding to hosts that a DHCP server provisioned with IP configuration information may be stored on the network in non-volatile memory such that current configuration information associated with the hosts may be obtained from the network in response to the DHCP server failure. For example, in a standalone deployment, messages may be sent to each host, which may respond with the current configuration information. In other scenarios, a summary node may provide summarized configuration information and messages may only be sent to hosts not included among the summarized configuration information, or configuration information may be synchronized among redundant DHCP servers such that messages may be sent to certain hosts based on differences between the configuration information on a mate DHCP server and a DHCP server recovering from failure.