Collecting Information Before Setting Up a DHCP Service

To set up a network running DHCP, you must first collect information about your existing network. This includes information about its topology, such as routers, switches, other networks, and services such as name services, file and print services, and so on.

If you plan to support clients on remote networks (clients on a different network from the networks on which you plan to deploy your DHCP services), you must also collect the remote networks' subnet masks, providing the remote network is subnetted. Be sure your netmasks (see netmasks(4)) table, which will be used by your DHCP service, has been updated with this information. You must also collect the IP addresses of the routers on the remote network, or configure clients on the remote network to use router discovery.

After you get all the necessary information, you must decide whether to store data that will be moved across the network in NIS+ or in files. NIS+ is the preferred storage for a multiple service environment, or for an enterprise environment. Files is the preferred storage for a single server, or small environments. After you have collected this information, run dhcpconfig(1M) and configure your remote network.