System Administration Guide: IP Services

DHCP Data on an Unconfigured Server

When you unconfigure a DHCP server you must decide what to do with the dhcptab table and the DHCP network tables. If the data is shared among servers, you should not remove the dhcptab and DHCP network tables because this would render DHCP unusable across your network. Data can be shared through NIS+ or on exported local file systems. The file /etc/inet/dhcpsvc.conf records the data store used and its location.

You can unconfigure a DHCP server but leave the data intact by not selecting any of the options to remove data. If you unconfigure the server and leave the data intact, you disable the DHCP server.

If you want another DHCP server to take ownership of the IP addresses belonging to the server you are unconfiguring, you must move the DHCP data to the other DHCP server before you unconfigure the current server. See Moving Configuration Data Between DHCP Servers (Task Map) for more information.

If you are certain you want to remove the data, you can select an option to remove the dhcptab and network tables. If you had generated client names for the DHCP addresses, you can also elect to remove those entries from the hosts table (whether in DNS, /etc/inet/hosts, or NIS+).

Before you unconfigure a BOOTP relay agent, be sure that no clients rely on this agent to forward requests to a DHCP server.