dhclient(1M)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | FEATURES | DESCRIPTION | WARNINGS | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | COMMAND LINE | FILES | ATTRIBUTES | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR

NAME

dhclient- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol client

SYNOPSIS

dhclient [-p port] [if0...]

FEATURES

BPF

DESCRIPTION

dhclient is a target utility.

The Internet Software Consortium DHCP client, dhclient, provides a means for configuring one or more network interfaces using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, BOOTP protocol, or, if these protocols fail, by statically assigning an address.

WARNINGS

Many options are defined for DHCP. The implementation of dhclient in this release takes only the subnet-mask option into account. Other options are silently ignored.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

The DHCP protocol allows a host to contact a central server which maintains a list of IP addresses which may be assigned on one or more subnets. A DHCP client may requiest an address from this pool, and then use it on a temporary basis for communication on the network. The DHCP protocol also provides a mechanism whereby a client can learn important details about the network to which it is attached, such as the location of a default router, the location of a name server and so on.

On startup, dhclient reads the /image/sys_bank/dhclient.cf for configuration instructions. It then gets a list of all the network interfaces that are configured in the current system. For each interface, it attempts to configure the interface using the DHCP protocol. dhclient does not keep track of leases across system reboot and server restart. As a result, dhclient always negotiates its IP address from scratch.

COMMAND LINE

The names of the network interfaces that dhclient should attempt to configure may be specified on the command line. If no interface names are specified on the command line dhclient will identify all network interfaces, elimininating non-broadcast interfaces if possible, and attempt to configure each interface.

If dhclient should listen and transmit on a port other than the standard (port 68), the -p flag may used. It should be followed by the udp port number that dhclient should use. This is mostly useful for debugging purposes.

FILES

/image/sys_bank/dhclient.cf

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE	ATTRIBUTE VALUE
Interface Stability	Evolving

SEE ALSO

dhclient.cf(4CC), dhcp-options(4CC), bpf(7S)

AUTHOR

dhclient was written by Ted Lemon <mellon@vix.com> under a contract with Vixie Labs. Funding for this project was provided by the Internet Software Corporation. Information about the Internet Software Consortium can be found at http://www.isc.org/isc.

This client was substantially modified and enhanced by Elliot Poger for use on Linux while he was working on the MosquitoNet project at Stanford.

The current version owes much to Elliot's Linux enhancements, but was substantially reorganized and partially rewritten by Ted Lemon so as to use the same networking framework that the Internet Software Consortium DHCP server uses.

ChorusOS 4.0  Last Revised December 1999

NAME | SYNOPSIS | FEATURES | DESCRIPTION | WARNINGS | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | COMMAND LINE | FILES | ATTRIBUTES | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR