[Dnsmasq-discuss] Feature request: make dnsmasq able to work as a proxydhcp

Simon Kelley simon at thekelleys.org.uk
Fri Mar 27 10:27:19 GMT 2009


Άλκης Γεωργόπουλος wrote:
> Στις 26-03-2009, ημέρα Πεμ, και ώρα 16:48 +0000, ο/η Simon Kelley
> έγραψε: 
>> Alkis,
>>
>> Why is pxe <http://www.kano.org.uk/projects/pxe/> not suitable to do this?
> 
> This project is only suitable for the first scenario that Guilherme
> described - meaning that the server it provides only listens on port
> 4011.
> So the existing DHCP server must be modified to send the string
> "PXEClient".
> 
> This cannot be done if we don't have control over the DHCP server (and
> we wouldn't really need a proxydhcp if we did), or if the DHCP server
> doesn't support sending custom strings (e.g. a cheap
> modem/router/dhcp-server that cannot be substituted by a proper PC-based
> dhcp server for policy reasons).
> 
> So someone would have to modify this project to be suitable for the
> second scenario (=actually the only needed one): to listen for
> broadcasted DHCPDISCOVERs on port 67 and answer with an empty DHCPOFFER
> with PXEclient as the vendor identifier. And of course he would have to
> maintain the project (last version = 2004).
> 
> And then we would have to install dnsmasq as well for the tftp and maybe
> the dns server.
> 
> 
> So if you could make dnsmasq (also) act as a proxydhcp, you'd be
> providing us with a clean solution (actually AFAIK the only open source
> working solution), and doing us a great favor... :-)
> 
>
Understood.

In that case, most of the work is in teaching dnsmasq to talk the 
"extended DHCP" packets that a PXE client is looking for, and act as a 
"boot server". That work would be useful for people who wanted  to use 
PXE menus and advanced features, even if they didn't need to use 
proxyDHCP because dnsmasq is already the main DHCP server on the network.

I'll take a look at doing that, but be aware that it's not a trivial 
piece of work, so don't expect anything too quickly.


Simon.



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