DHCP question

[pll at lanminds.com]

In a message dated: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 13:21:28 EST
"Matthew J. Brodeur" said:

>On Fri, 21 Feb 2003 pll at lanminds.com wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know offhand how many DNS search domains are allowed to be 
>> issued by a DHCP server to the client?
>
>   Technically, one.  ISC says, "The current DHCP spec doesn't support
>specifying a domain suffix search list."  This may just be their
>reading of the spec, though.
>http://arsinfo.cit.buffalo.edu/FAQ/faq.cgi?pkg=ISC%20DHCP&cat=Configuration#115

Yeah, I came up with that same answer looking through the ISC mail 
archives about 2 minutes before your mail came in :)  Good to have 
confirmation!

>   In reality it is possible even with ISC DHCPd, but you're at the
>mercy of the DHCP clients to interpret the list properly.  Just use
>a line like this in dhcpd.conf:
>option domain-name	"domain1.com domain2.com domain3.com";

I *thought* I had done this before.  Of course, I'm not currently 
running any dhcp servers, so couldn't check.  Must have been in a 
previous life.

>   ...and MOST systems will put a line in resolv.conf like:
>search domain1.com domain2.com domain3.com

And of course, we did just this at MCLX. Of course, almost all 
clients there were Linux using ISC's client which probably did the 
Right Thing (tm) :)

>   Unfortunately systems that don't handle this hack will probably
>reject the lease offer outright. [...snip...]  I have NO idea what
>Windows will do.

I think, for a change, Windows might actually handle it correctly, of 
course, short of setting up a server and grabbing a Windows system to 
try all this, I don't know for sure.  And that's a lot of work for a 
mere "conversation" I'm having with someone :)

>   There is a recent RFC (3397) called "DHCP Domain Search Option" but
>I don't think anyone has implemented it.

Has it actually been ratified?  I came across references to it, but 
nothing mentioned it was actually a bonafide RFC that should be 
implemented yet.

My guess is that even if it has been recently accepted, it's too new 
for any commercial DHCP implementation to be making use of it, and 
likely ISC is the only one who would have a client which worked 
correctly by now.

Thanks the info Matt, greatly appreciated.
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
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