Dynamic IP Address Allocation

Solstice PPP provides a mechanism for dynamic IP address allocation over asynchronous PPP links. This mechanism is used by clients to request IP addresses from a server at the time the PPP link is established.

Dynamic IP address allocation is enabled on the client side. When the client initiates a PPP link to the server, it requests an IP address for the connection. The server responds with its own IP address and the IP address it has allocated for the client's local interface, and the client uses these addresses to establish a point-to-point IP connection over the existing PPP link.

To support dynamic IP address allocation on the server, you must define a pool of point-to-point IP interfaces. The server allocates an interface from this pool when it receives a request for IP addresses from a client, and the interface is returned to the pool when the PPP link is terminated.

The number of IP interfaces in the pool should be equal to the number of modems connected to the server; however, the number of clients supported by the server may be much larger. IP addresses are allocated on demand for as long as there are modems available to accept the connections.

See Chapter 4, Editing the Configuration Filesfor instructions on how to set up servers and clients to use dynamic IP address allocation.