[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.