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Nortel WLAN—Security Switch 2300 Series Configuration Guide

Appendix E: DHCP server

WSS Software has a DHCP server that the switch uses to allocate IP addresses to the following:
Directly connected APs
Host connected to a new (unconfigured) 2350, 2360/2361, or 2382 to configure the switch using the Web Quick
Start
DHCP service for these items is enabled by default.
Optionally, you can configure the DHCP server to also provide IP addresses to APs and to clients.
Configuration is supported on an individual VLAN basis. When you configure the DHCP server on a VLAN, the server
can serve addresses only from the subnet that contains the host address assigned to the VLAN. By default, the VLAN
can serve any unused address in the subnet except the VLAN’s host address and the network and broadcast addresses.
You can specify the address range.
You can configure the DHCP server on more than one VLAN. You can configure a DHCP client and DHCP server on
the same VLAN, but only the client or the server can be enabled. The DHCP client and DHCP server cannot both be
enabled on the same VLAN at the same time.
The WSS Software DHCP server is implemented according to “RFC 2131: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol” and
“RFC 2132: DHCP Options and BOOTP Vendor Extensions”, with the following exceptions:
If the switch is powered down or restarted, WSS Software does not retain address allocations or lease times.
The WSS Software DHCP server will not operate properly when another DHCP server is present on the same
subnet.
The WSS Software DHCP server is configurable on an individual VLAN basis only, and operates only on the
subnets for which you configure it.
How the WSS software DHCP server works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804
Configuring the DHCP server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804
Displaying DHCP server information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 805
Note. Use of the WSS Software DHCP server to allocate client addresses is intended for
temporary, demonstration deployments and not for production networks. Nortel
recommends that you do not use the WSS Software DHCP server to allocate client
addresses in a production network.