3Com WX3000 operation manual DHCP/BOOTP Client Configuration, Introduction to Dhcp Client

4 DHCP/BOOTP Client Configuration

Introduction to DHCP Client

After you specify a VLAN interface as a DHCP client, the device can use DHCP to obtain parameters such as IP address dynamically from the DHCP server, which facilitates user configuration and management.

Refer to Obtaining IP Addresses Dynamically for the process of how a DHCP client dynamically obtains an IP address through DHCP.

Introduction to BOOTP Client

After you specify an interface as a bootstrap protocol (BOOTP) client, the interface can use BOOTP to get information (such as IP address) from the BOOTP server, which simplifies your configuration.

Before using BOOTP, an administrator needs to configure a BOOTP parameter file for each BOOTP client on the BOOTP server. The parameter file contains information such as MAC address and IP address of a BOOTP client. When a BOOTP client sends a request to the BOOTP server, the BOOTP server will search for the BOOTP parameter file and return it to the client.

A BOOTP client dynamically obtains an IP address from a BOOTP server in the following way:

1)The BOOTP client broadcasts a BOOTP request, which contains its own MAC address.

2)The BOOTP server receives the request and searches for the corresponding IP address according to the MAC address of the BOOTP client and sends the information in a BOOTP response to the BOOTP client.

3)The BOOTP client obtains the IP address from the received response.

Because a DHCP server can interact with a BOOTP client, you can use the DHCP server to assign an IP address to the BOOTP client, without needing to configure any BOOTP server.

Configuring a DHCP/BOOTP Client

Follow these steps to configure a DHCP/BOOTP client:

To do…	Use the command…	Remarks
Enter system view	system-view	—
Enter VLAN interface view	interface vlan-interface vlan-id	—

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