[Dnsmasq-discuss] DHCP Address - Lease in numerical order

[Jima]

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007, Simon Kelley wrote:
> It's not random: the address is derived from the start and end addresses of 
> the address pool and a hash of the MAC address. This means that a given host 
> will (nearly) always be offered the same address, without dnsmasq having to 
> keep track of the addresses allocated in the past to hosts which don't have a 
> lease right now.
>
> The alternatives are  it to keep a much bigger database which has historical 
> information about all leases offered to all hosts for all time (ISC), or not 
> to attempt to give hosts stable addresses at all (udhcpd). I thought the 
> hash-function trick was a particularly neat alternative.

  Thanks for the explanation.  I've always vaguely noticed that happening, 
but it never occurred to me that it was a specifically-coded feature.

      Jima