Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

A DHCP Server settings tab

The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network protocol that is used to configure devices which are connected to a network (known as hosts) so that they can communicate on an IP network. It involves clients and a server operating in a client-server model. In a typical personal home local area network (LAN), a router is the server^[1] while clients are personal computers or printers. The router receives this information through a modem from an internet service provider which also operate DHCP servers where the modems are clients. The clients request configuration settings using the DHCP protocol such as an IP address, a default route and one or more DNS server addresses. Once the client implements these settings, the host is able to communicate on that internet.

The DHCP server maintains a database of available IP addresses and configuration information. When the server receives a request from a client, the DHCP server determines the network to which the DHCP client is connected, and then allocates an IP address or prefix that is appropriate for the client, and sends configuration information appropriate for that client. DHCP servers typically grant IP addresses to clients only for a limited interval. DHCP clients are responsible for renewing their IP address before that interval has expired, and must stop using the address once the interval has expired, if they have not been able to renew it.

DHCP is used for IPv4 and IPv6. While both versions serve the same purpose, the details of the protocol for IPv4 and IPv6 are sufficiently different that they may be considered separate protocols.^[2]

Hosts that do not use DHCP for address configuration may still use it to obtain other configuration information. Alternatively, IPv6 hosts may use stateless address autoconfiguration. IPv4 hosts may use link-local addressing to achieve limited local connectivity.

History

DHCP was first defined as a standards track protocol in RFC 1531 in October 1993, as an extension to the Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP). The motivation for extending BOOTP was that BOOTP required manual intervention to add configuration information for each client, and did not provide a mechanism for reclaiming disused IP addresses. This means that connecting a computer to the internet was a manual process.^[3]

Many worked to clarify the protocol as it gained popularity, and in 1997 RFC 2131 was released, and remains as of 2011^[update] the standard for IPv4 networks. DHCPv6 is documented in RFC 3315. RFC 3633 added a DHCPv6 mechanism for prefix delegation. DHCPv6 was further extended to provide configuration information to clients configured using stateless address autoconfiguration in RFC 3736.

The BOOTP protocol itself was first defined in RFC 951 as a replacement for the Reverse Address Resolution Protocol RARP. The primary motivation for replacing RARP with BOOTP was that RARP was a data link layer protocol. This made implementation difficult on many server platforms, and required that a server be present on each individual network link. BOOTP introduced the innovation of a relay agent, which allowed the forwarding of BOOTP packets off the local network using standard IP routing, thus one central BOOTP server could serve hosts on many IP subnets.^[4]

Nontechnical overview

DHCP allows computers (clients) to be assigned settings from a server in a client-server model. DHCP is ubiquitous in modern networks^[5] and is used in home networks as well as larger campus networks.

DHCP is often used together with network address translation (NAT).^[6] Network address translation separates public (external) and private (internal) IP addresses. In home networks, the ISP server may assign a globally unique external IP address to a home router or modem and this IP address is used in internet communications. The router will then assign internal IP addresses to the clients connected to it, allowing the clients to broadcast only the external IP address.^[7] This improves security by limiting access to devices and also helps to conserve IPv4 addresses. To directly access a device from outside the network, port forwarding may be used.

Technical overview

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol automates network-parameter assignment to network devices from one or more DHCP servers. Even in small networks, DHCP is useful because it makes it easy to add new machines to the network.

When a DHCP-configured client (a computer or any other network-aware device) connects to a network, the DHCP client sends a broadcast query requesting necessary information to a DHCP server. The DHCP server manages a pool of IP addresses and information about client configuration parameters such as default gateway, domain name, the name servers, other servers such as time servers, and so forth. On receiving a valid request, the server assigns the computer an IP address, a lease (length of time the allocation is valid), and other IP configuration parameters, such as the subnet mask and the default gateway. The query is typically initiated immediately after booting, and must complete before the client can initiate IP-based communication with other hosts. Upon disconnecting, the IP address is returned to the pool for use by another computer. This way, many other computers can use the same IP address within minutes of each other.

Because the DHCP protocol must work correctly even before DHCP clients have been configured, the DHCP server and DHCP client usually must be connected to the same network link. In larger networks, this is not practical. On such networks, each network link contains one or more DHCP relay agents. These DHCP relay agents receive messages from DHCP clients and forward them to DHCP servers. DHCP servers send responses back to the relay agent, and the relay agent then sends these responses to the DHCP client on the local network link.

Depending on implementation, the DHCP server may have three methods of allocating IP-addresses:

• dynamic allocation: A network administrator assigns a range of IP addresses to DHCP, and each client computer on the LAN is configured to request an IP address from the DHCP server during network initialization. The request-and-grant process uses a lease concept with a controllable time period, allowing the DHCP server to reclaim (and then reallocate) IP addresses that are not renewed.
• automatic allocation: The DHCP server permanently assigns a free IP address to a requesting client from the range defined by the administrator. This is like dynamic allocation, but the DHCP server keeps a table of past IP address assignments, so that it can preferentially assign to a client the same IP address that the client previously had.
• static allocation: The DHCP server allocates an IP address based on a table with MAC address/IP address pairs, which are manually filled in (perhaps by a network administrator). Only clients with a MAC address listed in this table will be allocated an IP address. This feature, which is not supported by all DHCP servers, is variously called Static DHCP Assignment by DD-WRT, fixed-address by the dhcpd documentation, Address Reservation by Netgear, DHCP reservation or Static DHCP by Cisco and Linksys, and IP reservation or MAC/IP binding by various other router manufacturers.

Technical details

DHCP uses the same two ports assigned by IANA for BOOTP: destination UDP port 67 for sending data to the server, and UDP port 68 for data to the client. DHCP communications are connectionless in nature.

DHCP operations fall into four basic phases: IP discovery, IP lease offer, IP request, and IP lease acknowledgement. These points are often abbreviated as DORA (Discovery, Offer, Request, Acknowledgement).

DHCP clients and servers on the same subnet communicate via UDP broadcasts, initially. If the client and server are on different subnets, a DHCP Helper or DHCP Relay Agent may be used. Clients requesting renewal of an existing lease may communicate directly via UDP unicast, since the client already has an established IP address at that point.

DHCP discovery

The client broadcasts messages on the physical subnet to discover available DHCP servers. Network administrators can configure a local router to forward DHCP packets to a DHCP server from a different subnet. This client-implementation creates a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packet with the broadcast destination of 255.255.255.255 or the specific subnet broadcast address.

A DHCP client can also request its last-known IP address (in the example below, 192.168.1.100). If the client remains connected to a network for which this IP is valid, the server may grant the request. Otherwise, it depends whether the server is set up as authoritative or not. An authoritative server will deny the request, making the client ask for a new IP address immediately. A non-authoritative server simply ignores the request, leading to an implementation-dependent timeout for the client to give up on the request and ask for a new IP address.

DHCP offer

When a DHCP server receives an IP lease request from a client, it reserves an IP address for the client and extends an IP lease offer by sending a DHCPOFFER message to the client. This message contains the client's MAC address, the IP address that the server is offering, the subnet mask, the lease duration, and the IP address of the DHCP server making the offer.

The server determines the configuration based on the client's hardware address as specified in the CHADDR (Client Hardware Address) field. Here the server, 192.168.1.1, specifies the client's IP address in the YIADDR (Your IP Address) field.

DHCP request

In response to the DHCP offer, the client replies with a DHCP request, unicast to the server, requesting the offered address. A client can receive DHCP offers from multiple servers, but it will accept only one DHCP offer. Based on the Transaction ID field in the request, servers are informed whose offer the client has accepted. When other DHCP servers receive this message, they withdraw any offers that they might have made to the client and return the offered address to the pool of available addresses. In some cases DHCP request message is broadcast, instead of being unicast to a particular DHCP server, because the DHCP client has still not received an IP address. Also, this way one message can let all other DHCP servers know that another server will be supplying the IP address without missing any of the servers with a series of unicast messages.

DHCP acknowledgement

When the DHCP server receives the DHCPREQUEST message from the client, the configuration process enters its final phase. The acknowledgement phase involves sending a DHCPACK packet to the client. This packet includes the lease duration and any other configuration information that the client might have requested. At this point, the IP configuration process is completed.

The protocol expects the DHCP client to configure its network interface with the negotiated parameters.

After the client obtains an IP address, the client may use the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to prevent IP conflicts caused by overlapping address pools of DHCP servers.

DHCP information

A DHCP client may request more information than the server sent with the original DHCPOFFER. The client may also request repeat data for a particular application. For example, browsers use DHCP Inform to obtain web proxy settings via WPAD.

DHCP releasing

The client sends a request to the DHCP server to release the DHCP information and the client deactivates its IP address. As client devices usually do not know when users may unplug them from the network, the protocol does not mandate the sending of DHCP Release.

Client configuration parameters in DHCP

A DHCP server can provide optional configuration parameters to the client. RFC 2132 describes the available DHCP options defined by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) - DHCP and BOOTP PARAMETERS.

A DHCP client can select, manipulate and overwrite parameters provided by a DHCP server.^[8]

DHCP options

Options are variably length octet strings. The first octet is the option code, the second octet is the number of following octets and the remaining octets are code dependent. For example, the DHCP Message type option for an Offer would appear as 0x35,0x01,0x02, where 0x35 is code 53 for "DHCP Message Type", 0x01 means one octet follows and 0x02 is the value of "Offer".

The following tables list the available DHCP options, as stated in RFC2132.^[9]

Vendor identification

An option exists to identify the vendor and functionality of a DHCP client. The information is a variable-length string of characters or octets which has a meaning specified by the vendor of the DHCP client. One method that a DHCP client can utilize to communicate to the server that it is using a certain type of hardware or firmware is to set a value in its DHCP requests called the Vendor Class Identifier (VCI) (Option 60). This method allows a DHCP server to differentiate between the two kinds of client machines and process the requests from the two types of modems appropriately. Some types of set-top boxes also set the VCI (Option 60) to inform the DHCP server about the hardware type and functionality of the device. The value this option is set to gives the DHCP server a hint about any required extra information that this client needs in a DHCP response.

DHCP relaying

In small networks, where only one IP subnet is being managed, DHCP clients communicate directly with DHCP servers. However, DHCP servers can also provide IP addresses for multiple subnets. In this case, a DHCP client that has not yet acquired an IP address cannot communicate directly with the DHCP server using IP routing, because it doesn't have a routable IP address, nor does it know the IP address of a router. In order to allow DHCP clients on subnets not directly served by DHCP servers to communicate with DHCP servers, DHCP relay agents can be installed on these subnets. The DHCP client broadcasts on the local link; the relay agent receives the broadcast and transmits it to one or more DHCP servers using unicast. The relay agent stores its own IP address in the GIADDR field of the DHCP packet. The DHCP server uses the GIADDR to determine the subnet on which the relay agent received the broadcast, and allocates an IP address on that subnet. When the DHCP server replies to the client, it sends the reply to the GIADDR address, again using unicast. The relay agent then retransmits the response on the local network.

Reliability

The DHCP protocol provides reliability in several ways: periodic renewal, rebinding, and failover. DHCP clients are allocated leases that last for some period of time. Clients begin to attempt to renew their leases once half the lease interval has expired. They do this by sending a unicast DHCPREQUEST message to the DHCP server that granted the original lease. If that server is down or unreachable, it will fail to respond to the DHCPREQUEST. However, the DHCPREQUEST will be repeated by the client from time to time,^[specify] so when the DHCP server comes back up or becomes reachable again, the DHCP client will succeed in contacting it, and renew its lease.

If the DHCP server is unreachable for an extended period of time,^[specify] the DHCP client will attempt to rebind, by broadcasting its DHCPREQUEST rather than unicasting it. Because it is broadcast, the DHCPREQUEST message will reach all available DHCP servers. If some other DHCP server is able to renew the lease, it will do so at this time.

In order for rebinding to work, when the client successfully contacts a backup DHCP server, that server must have accurate information about the client's binding. Maintaining accurate binding information between two servers is a complicated problem; if both servers are able to update the same lease database, there must be a mechanism to avoid conflicts between updates on the independent servers. A standard for implementing fault-tolerant DHCP servers was developed at the Internet Engineering Task Force.^{[20][note 1]}

If rebinding fails, the lease will eventually expire. When the lease expires, the client must stop using the IP address granted to it in its lease. At that time, it will restart the DHCP process from the beginning by broadcasting a DHCPDISCOVER message. Since its lease has expired, it will accept any IP address offered to it. Once it has a new IP address, presumably from a different DHCP server, it will once again be able to use the network. However, since its IP address has changed, any ongoing connections will be broken.

Security

The base DHCP protocol does not include any mechanism for authentication.^[21] Because of this, it is vulnerable to a variety of attacks. These attacks fall into three main categories:

• Unauthorized DHCP servers providing false information to clients.^[22]
• Unauthorized clients gaining access to resources.^[22]
• Resource exhaustion attacks from malicious DHCP clients.^[22]

Because the client has no way to validate the identity of a DHCP server, unauthorized DHCP servers can be operated on networks, providing incorrect information to DHCP clients. This can serve either as a denial-of-service attack, preventing the client from gaining access to network connectivity^{[citation needed]}, or as a man-in-the-middle attack. Because the DHCP server provides the DHCP client with server IP addresses, such as the IP address of one or more DNS servers,^[22] an attacker can convince a DHCP client to do its DNS lookups through its own DNS server, and can therefore provide its own answers to DNS queries from the client.^[23] This in turn allows the attacker to redirect network traffic through itself, allowing it to eavesdrop on connections between the client and network servers it contacts, or to simply replace those network servers with its own.^[23]

Because the DHCP server has no secure mechanism for authenticating the client, clients can gain unauthorized access to IP addresses by presenting credentials, such as client identifiers, that belong to other DHCP clients.^{[citation needed]} This also allows DHCP clients to exhaust the DHCP server's store of IP addresses—by presenting new credentials each time it asks for an address, the client can consume all the available IP addresses on a particular network link, preventing other DHCP clients from getting service.^{[citation needed]}

DHCP does provide some mechanisms for mitigating these problems. The Relay Agent Information Option protocol extension (RFC 3046) allows network operators to attach tags to DHCP messages as these messages arrive on the network operator's trusted network. This tag is then used as an authorization token to control the client's access to network resources. Because the client has no access to the network upstream of the relay agent, the lack of authentication does not prevent the DHCP server operator from relying on the authorization token.^[21]

Another extension, Authentication for DHCP Messages (RFC 3118), provides a mechanism for authenticating DHCP messages. Unfortunately RFC 3118 has not seen widespread adoption because of the problems of managing keys for large numbers of DHCP clients.^[24]

Confidentiality

In an ISP context, DHCP logs of address assignments either contain or are linked to personally identifying confidential information, the contact details of the client. These are attractive to spammers, and may be sought for "fishing expeditions" by police agencies or litigators. At least one implementation^{[citation needed]} mimics the Canadian Library Association policy for book circulation and does not retain identifying information once the "loan" has ended.

See also

Computer networking portal

• BOOTP - earlier protocol for the same purpose
• DHCPv6 - For use with ipv6

Notes

References

External links

• RFC 2131 - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
• RFC 2132 - DHCP Options and BOOTP Vendor Extensions
• RFC 3046 - DHCP Relay Agent Information Option
• RFC 3942 - Reclassifying Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Version Four (DHCPv4) Options
• RFC 4242 - Information Refresh Time Option for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6
• RFC 4361 - Node-specific Client Identifiers for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Version Four (DHCPv4)
• RFC 4436 - Detecting Network Attachment in IPv4 (DNAv4)