[NTLUG:Discuss] philosophical dhcpcd question

[Richard Geoffrion]

Fred James wrote:
> OK, but why?  Please understand that this is not a question of how it
> is, or what happens, nor am I suggesting the world change to fit my
> current whim.  It fairly is easy to understand why we might want a
> DHCP client to try to retain a single IP for the duration of its
> connection, or possibly even upon reestablishing a failed connection,
> as long as it is connected to the same DHCP sever.  But is there any
> reason to want that DHCP client to try to keep the same IP it had
> before power down, when it is powered up connected to a different
> DHCP server?
>

In my case, when users have the same ip address it makes it easy for me as
an administrator to ping x.x.x.x to test this that or the other.  Sometimes
I want the flexibility of automatically setting someone's IP settings
(gateway, dns, domain name...etc) but I want the address to be permenant for
reasons like using VNC for remote control support purposes.  That's why I
like dhcp and why I like people to keep the same address --  Network
administration becomes MUCH easier.

However, DHCP can be made to be more 'dynamic'.  All I have to do is setup a
lease time of 5 minutes and as long as a workstation is turned on and logged
in, they will continually renew their IP address.  Turn off the workstation
and take it home and the lease is expired.  Of course it will try to
re-lease the same IP address.....so we're back to the issue of having to
tell the client to release it's IP address.

A short lease time DOES cause much more traffic, but can also be a help when
you are preparing to switch out network resources...like say a dhcp server
or gateway change.

/dev/rtcg