RuggedCom RX1100 manual Configuring The Dhcp server, Dhcp Fundamentals, Dhcp Network Organizations

Chapter 21 - Configuring The DHCP server

Chapter 21 - Configuring The DHCP server

Introduction

This chapter familiarizes the user with:

∙DHCP Server Configuration

∙Use of Option 82

DHCP Fundamentals

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a method for centrally and consistently managing IP addresses and settings for clients, offering a variety of assignment methods. IP addresses can be assigned based on the Ethernet MAC address of a client, sequentially, or by using port identification provided by a DHCP relay agent device.

DHCP Network Organizations

The information to assign addresses in DHCP is organized to deal with clients at the host, group, subnet, pool and shared network level.

Hosts entries assign specific settings to a client based on its Ethernet MAC address.

Groups allow identical settings to be created for a group of hosts, making it simpler to manage changes to the settings for all the hosts contained within the group. Groups contain hosts.

Pools contain ranges of IP addresses to hand out to clients with access rules to determine which clients should receive addresses from that pool.

Subnets control settings for each subnet that DHCP serves. A subnet can include a range of IP address to hand out to clients. Only one subnet can contain dynamic IP address ranges without any access restrictions on any given physical port since DHCP doesn't know which subnet a client should belong to when the request is received. Subnets contain groups, pools and hosts.

Shared networks are used when multiple subnets should be served by a single physical port. This applies both when using a DHCP relay agent connected to the port with additional subnets behind the relay agent, or when multiple virtual networks exist on one physical interface. Each subnet then gets its own subnet definition inside the shared network rather than at the top level. Shared networks contain subnets, groups and hosts.

DHCP Client Options

The following options apply to single hosts, subnets of hosts, pools (potentially discontinuous ranges of addresses), shared networks (a single physical networks for which distinct subnets of hosts coexist and request addresses) and groups. The meaning of each option is the same in each case, while the type of target determines which clients it applies to.

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