Download Introducing TCP/IP

8
The Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP)
A Guide to TCP/IP
Chapter 8
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Objectives
After reading this chapter and completing the
exercises you will be able to:
• Understand the basic services DHCP offers to its
clients
• Explain DHCP’s background, history, and origins
• Describe the basic software components that
permit DHCP to function
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Objectives
After reading this chapter and completing the
exercises you will be able to:
• Understand the specifics of IP address
management using DHCP
• Read and understand basic DHCP message types
• Explain and configure basic settings for DHCP
services
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Introducing DHCP
• DHCP is a service that permits network
administrators to set up servers to allocate and
manage collections of IP addresses for
workstations, desktop computers, and other
client machines that do not require fixed IP
addresses
• DHCP can also supply important IP configuration
data for clients, including the subnet mask, the
local IP gateway (router) address, and even DNS
and WINS data, where needed or appropriate
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Introducing DHCP
•
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DHCP servers can
manage one or more
ranges of IP addresses,
each of which may be
called an address pool
(if considered as a
range of available
addresses from which
unused addresses may
be allocated), or an
address scope (if
considered as a range
of numeric IP addresses
that fall under DHCP’s
control)
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Introducing DHCP
• Here’s a brief rundown of how DHCP works, from a client
perspective:
– When TCP/IP is configured on the client computer, the Obtain
an IP address automatically option button is the only
necessary set-up element. Everything is automatic
– The next time the workstation attempts to access the network
(older versions of Windows must be rebooted first), it
broadcasts a DHCP address request to the network because it
has no IP address, but is now configured as a DHCP client. All
DHCP servers present on the same cable segment or
broadcast domain receive this request, and send back a
message that indicates a willingness to grant an address
lease, if an address is available
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DHCP’s Origins
• The DHCP protocol is an extension of an
earlier IP protocol called BOOTP
• BOOTP was originally developed to permit
diskless workstations to bootstrap from a
Programmable Read-Only Memory (PROM) or
Erasable PROM (EPROM) on their network
interface cards
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DHCP Software Elements
• Three pieces of software that work together define a
complete DHCP networking environment:
– DHCP client
– DHCP server
– DHCP relay agent
• Please note that most other DHCP requests—such as lease
renewals or surrenders—occur as unicast messages
because as soon as a machine obtains an IP address and a
default IP gateway address, it is able to communicate
directly with the DHCP server and no longer needs an
intermediary
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DHCP Lease Types
• A DHCP server recognizes three types of
address leases:
– Manual: With a manual lease, the administrator
explicitly assigns all IP addresses manually
– Automatic: The DHCP server permanently assigns
certain IP addresses
– Dynamic: The DHCP server assigns addresses for
specific periods of time
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More About DHCP Leases
• Here’s a brief explanation of why dynamic address
leasing is the best practice presently used for clients:
– Server addresses are advertised using the DNS, which
resolves domain names into IP addresses, and vice versa
– DNS is not a dynamic environment so all address updates
must be entered manually
– Client addresses usually come into play only when e-mail
addresses of the form [email protected] must be
resolved. E-mail servers can resolve this information when
clients connect so dynamic address resolution works
perfectly well for clients
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More About DHCP Leases
• A typical IP addressing scheme on a network
might look like this:
– Servers have fixed IP addresses because their DNS
entries must stay consistent
– Routers (or IP gateways, be they routers or other
machines) have fixed IP addresses because their
addresses are key parts of any subnet’s IP configuration
– Clients use dynamic IP addresses because e-mail
access through POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 avoids the
need for fixed addresses (resolution occurs each time a
message transfer is made)
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Understanding IP
Address Management with DHCP
• When a DHCP client has no IP address (booting for
the first time, or after a lease expires), it must
broadcast a request for an IP address to obtain
one—this process is called DHCP Discovery
• DHCP servers that can hear this discovery
broadcast offer an IP address to a client for a
specific amount of time (the lease time)
• The default DHCP lease time varies according to
which server is used (eight days for Windows 2000
and 36 hours for Windows NT 4.0, for example)
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Understanding IP
Address Management with DHCP
• In the middle of the lease time, the client starts a
renewal process to determine if it can keep the address
past the lease time
• If the client cannot renew the address from that DHCP
server within the stipulated lease period, that client must
begin the more desperate process of renewing the
address from another DHCP server
• This is called the rebinding process
• If rebinding fails, a client must completely release its
address
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Understanding IP
Address Management with DHCP
• The DHCP Discovery process relies on the initial DHCP
broadcast
• Naturally, routers do not forward these discovery
broadcasts so the entire discovery process is a local
process
• There must be a DHCP server on the local network
segment
• Because it is impractical to place a DHCP server on
every network segment, the DHCP specification includes
the relay agent process to help route the DHCP
discovery broadcasts to another network segment
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The Standard
Address Discovery Process
• When a DHCP client boots up, it performs the Standard
Address Discovery process before it can communicate on
the network
• After the process completes successfully, the DHCP client
tests the IP address using a duplicate IP address ARP
broadcast
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The Standard
Address Discovery Process
• The DHCP Discovery process actually uses four
packets:
– DHCP Discover packet
– DHCP Offer packet
– DHCP Request packet
– DHCP Acknowledge packet
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The Discover Packet
• During the DHCP Discovery process, the client
broadcasts a Discover packet that identifies the client’s
hardware address
• If the DHCP client was on the network before, the client
also defines a preferred address—typically the client
prefers the last address it used
• In the DHCP Discover packet shown in Figure 8-3, the
Message Type value is one—this indicates that this
packet is a DHCP Discover packet
• The Client Identifier field value is based on the client’s
hardware address
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DHCP Discover
Packet Is Always Sent as
a Hardware and IP Broadcast
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The Offer Packet
• The DHCP server sends the Offer packet to
offer an IP address to the DHCP client
• The Offer packet includes the IP address that
is offered to the client, and sometimes
answers to the requested options in the
DHCP Discover packet
• Note in the IP address field that the DHCP
server offers 10.1.0.2 to the client
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DHCP Offer Packet
Includes the Suggested
IP Address for the DHCP Client
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The Request Packet
• Once the Offer packet is received, the
client can either accept the offer by
issuing a DHCP Request packet, or reject
the offer by sending a DHCP Decline
packet
• Typically, a client only sends a Decline if it
received more than one Offer
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DHCP Client May
List Additional Configuration
Parameters in the DHCP Request Packet
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The Acknowledgement Packet
• The Acknowledgement
packet is sent from the
server to the client to
indicate the
completion of the fourpacket DHCP
Discovery process
• This response
contains answers to
any options to which
the DHCP server
replies
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The Acknowledgement Packet
• The Acknowledgement packet shown in
Figure 8-6 includes some answers to the
client’s request for information, as listed
below:
– The client subnet mask is 255.255.0.0
– The client’s default gateway address is 10.0.0.1
– The client’s DNS server address is 10.0.0.1
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The Address Renewal Process
• When a DHCP client receives an address from a
DHCP server, the client also receives a lease time
and notes the time that the address was received
The Renewal Time (T1)
• T1 is defined as the time that the client tries to
renew its network address by contacting the
DHCP server that sent the original address to the
client
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The Address Renewal Process
The Rebinding Time (T2)
• T2 is defined as the time that the client begins to
broadcast a renewal request hoping that another
DHCP server can extend the lease time
• The DHCP client continues to retry the rebinding
process until one minute from the lease
expiration time
• If the client is unsuccessful in renewing the lease,
it must give up the address at the expiration of
the lease time, and reinitialize
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DHCP Timeline Includes
the Lease Time (LT), Renewal
Time (T1), and Rebinding Time (T2)
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DHCP Client Begins
Advertising an Address of 0.0.0.0
When It Gives Up Its IP Address
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The DHCP Address Release Process
• Although not required by the
specification, the client should release its
address by sending a DHCP Release
packet to the server (called the release
process)
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DHCP Packet Structures
• Figure 8-9 shows the standard DHCP packet structure
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DHCP Packet Structures
Operation Code Field
• This 1-byte field indicates whether this packet is a DHCP
request (0x01) or DHCP reply (0x02)
Hardware Type Field
• This 1-byte field identifies the hardware address type, and
matches the values assigned for ARP hardware type
definitions
Hardware Length Field
• This 1-byte field indicates the length of the hardware
address
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DHCP Packet Structures
Hops Field
• This field is set to zero by the client, and may be
used by relay agents as they assist a client in
obtaining an IP address and/or configuration
information
Transaction ID Number Field
• This 4-byte field contains a random number
selected by the client, and is used to match
requests and responses between the client and
server
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DHCP Packet Structures
Seconds Since Boot Field
• This 2-byte field indicates the number of seconds
that elapsed since the client began requesting a
new address, or renewal of an existing address
Flags Field
• The first bit of the 2-byte Flags field can be
toggled to one to indicate that the DHCP client
cannot accept unicast MAC layer datagrams
before the IP software is completely configured
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DHCP Packet Structures
Client IP Address Field
• The DHCP client fills in this 4-byte field with its IP address
after it is assigned and bound to the IP stack
Your IP Address Field
• This 4-byte field contains the address being offered by the
DHCP server
Server IP Address Field
• This 4-byte field contains the IP address of the DHCP server
to use in the boot process
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DHCP Packet Structures
Gateway IP Address Field
• This 4-byte field contains the address of the
DHCP relay agent, if one is used
Client Hardware Address Field
• This 16-byte field contains the hardware
address of the client
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DHCP Packet Structures
Server Host Name Field
• This 64-byte field can contain the server host
name, but such information is optional
• This field can contain a null-terminated string (all
zeroes)
Boot File Field
• This field contains an optional boot filename or
null-terminated string
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DHCP Options Fields
•
DHCP options are used to expand the data that is included in the
DHCP packet
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DHCP Options
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DHCP Options
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DHCP Option 53: Message Type
• This required option indicates the general
purpose of any DHCP message
• As you may recall, the DHCP boot sequence uses
the following message types:
– DHCP Message Type 1: Discover (client to server)
– DHCP Message Type 2: Offer (server to client)
– DHCP Message Type 3: Request (client to server)
– DHCP Message Type 4: ACK (server to client)
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Broadcast and Unicast in DHCP
•
As you examine DHCP communications, you will note they use a
strange mix of broadcast and unicast addressing
•
DHCP clients must use broadcast until obtaining IP addresses
through a successful completion of the Discovery, Offer, Request,
and Acknowledgement processes
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DHCP Relay Agents
•
The relay agent function is typically loaded on a router connected
to the segment containing DHCP clients
•
This relay agent device is configured with the address of the
DHCP server, and can communicate unicast directly with that
server
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DHCP Relay Agents
•
Figure 8-11 shows the communication sequence on a network that
supports a DHCP relay agent
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Microsoft DHCP Scopes and Classes
• Microsoft uses the term scope to define a
set of IP addresses that the Windows 2000
DHCP server can assign to clients
• Microsoft refers to a collection of multiple
individual scopes as a superscope
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The Future of DHCP
• As IPv6 development and deployment
move forward, DHCP’s role changes
significantly
• One of the great advantages of IPv6 is
autoconfiguration—IPv6 hosts can create
local IP addresses using their hardware
addresses and the Neighbor Discovery
process
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Troubleshooting DHCP
• The best way to troubleshoot DHCP is with an analyzer—
compare a problematic boot up sequence with the standard
four-packet boot up sequence
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Troubleshooting DHCP
• You can release and/or renew an IP
address using the following commands:
– ipconfig/release - Releases the IP address for
the specified adapter
– ipconfig/renew – Renews the IP address for the
specified adapter
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Summary
• DHCP provides a way for computers to obtain
usable, unique IP addresses and necessary
TCP/IP configurations even when no IP
addresses were assigned to those machines
• From the administrative side, DHCP makes is
easy to define and manage pools of IP
addresses, which Microsoft calls a scope in
the singular and a superscope in the plural
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Summary
• DHCP’s origins lie in an earlier TCP/IP Application
layer protocol, called BOOTP, used to enable
diskless workstations to boot remotely across a
network
• DHCP supports three types of address allocation:
manual, in which administrators directly manage
all addresses; automatic, in which relatively static
address assignments may be made under
DHCP’s control; and dynamic, in which
addresses are allocated with explicit expiration
intervals called leases
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Summary
• DHCP supports a wide variety of message types
and options, but only Message Type 53 (DHCP
Message) is mandatory for any given DHCP
message
• A protocol analyzer is especially effective when
diagnosing DHCP difficulties, particularly those
related to the DHCP boot sequence, because it
can display the sequence of messages that
occurs on a network, which may then be
compared to the usual, prescribed sequence
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