[KLUG Members] dhcpd

[Vernon]

Adam Tauno Williams wrote:

>Does anyone know if ISC DHCP provides any kind of API or hooks for looking up
>data external to the config file?  I'd like to be able to restrain its dolling
>out an IP except to MACs found in the DSA.  Bieng able to trigger an event on
>lease grant/renweal/expire would be nice to.  But I've never seen anything like
>this.
>

Guess it's time to look through the source code for dhcpd ... yuck!
I cannot help, but I can commiserate ... dhcp daemons are terrible from 
what is obvious about them.
Configuring them is anybody's best guess, the man pages for them are 
unintelligible, and the one my ISP
runs just plain sux.

Damn if I have not seen _smart_ folks who've run multiple ISPs 
simultaneously for over 10 years, sitting
there for over 30 minutes wondering why their laptop cannot negotiate an 
IP from whatever dhcpd is on
the LAN they are connected to, and fighting with dhcp client config 
files.  So both the dchp clients _and_
servers are pitiful, and yes I've tried them all (pump, dhclient, dhcpcd 
clients ... dhcpd server, etc ... not to
mention windozing off waiting for an IP).

Maybe it's time to go back and read the RFCs, take a look at the source, 
and figure out why there are
command line options to dhcp clients like "--win-client-ident" and why 
the _latest_ release of the default
dhcp client from RedHat (dhclient, i think) takes over 5 minutes to 
negotiate an IP sometimes!  In other
words, the dhcp daemons of this world need some revamping, and clearer 
paths to take when trouble
shooting problems and configuring installs.

If you run an ISP, you ought to know how to negotiate an IP address.
Only people who have to boot (not reboot) machines as often as myself 
realize that there are still
major issues with dchp.  You do not see new releases of dhcpd very often 
either ... why is that?

Vernon
vsingleton@cfl.rr.com