[Dnsmasq-discuss] DHCP resolution - anwering my own question
Simon Kelley
simon@thekelleys.org.uk
Sun, 16 Jan 2005 13:41:34 +0000
John Grant wrote:
> To make life difficult there were two problems:
>
> - local= is now set to /localnet/.mydomain_name.com/
> now I can understand the .myd... bit, even though the
> docs don't make the leading . clear. But I have no idea what
> the localnet bit does - what is it there for (or can I just
> drop it).
Your can just drop it - the --local flag has no effect on how
DHCP-drives names are resolved.
> - to make life hard, the mandrake 10.1 machine I was
> testing
> from wasn't actually sending HOSTNAME, or HOSTID in its
> dhcp request. I just overtyped the HOSTNAME= line in
> ifcfg-etho not knowing that the real variable is
> DHCP_HOSTNAME, once I changed that it worked.
>
>
This is the crucial bit. What makes life awkward is that there are at
least four different DHCP clients in common use on Linux, each
configured in a different way. Plus most distros have a network
configuration infrastructure to invoke the DHCP client, and non of those
are standardised either. Finally, almost non of the distros send the
hostname by default.
Maybe I should collate a table for the various distros?
As a small blow for sanity, the dhcpcd package in Debian, which I
maintain, will Just Work.
HTH
Simon.