Technical data

Conﬁguring the DHCP Client

DHCP client is the TCP/IP Services component which allows a system to request

network conﬁguration information from a DHCP server and then use that

information to conﬁgure one or more of its network interfaces.

TCP/IP Services DHCP client is an OpenVMS implementation of the Compaq

Tru64 UNIX client.

This chapter reviews key concepts and describes the following topics:

• DHCP client components (Section 8.2)

• DHCP client startup and shutdown (Section 8.3)

• Conﬁguring the DHCP client (Section 8.4)

• TCP/IP management commands (Section 8.5)

• Using the SHOWDHC utility (Section 8.6)

8.1 Key Concepts

When a system connects to a network, in addition to the appropriate network

software, it must have conﬁguration information that identiﬁes the system

in network communications. As a minimum, it must have an IP address, a

broadcast address, and a subnet mask conﬁgured before any communication with

other systems can take place. This information can be statically conﬁgured, that

is, permanently stored in a local database and used every time the network is

initialized. Or it can be dynamically conﬁgured by obtaining the information from

a DHCP server during network initialization. The DHCP server maintains the

conﬁguration information, and upon a client request for such information, returns

the conﬁguration for that particular host through a client and server dialog using

the DHCP protocol.

A system can have more than one network interface installed and you can use

DHCP client to dynamically conﬁgure all or a subset of the installed interfaces.

There is one DHCP client process running on a system and it conﬁgures all

interfaces that are designated as under DHCP control.

In an OpenVMS Cluster, you can use DHCP client to conﬁgure one of the systems,

a mix of systems or all systems in the cluster. Each system in the cluster using

DHCP to conﬁgure its interfaces, must run DHCP client.

Note

If a system is running DHCP client, it can not also run a DHCP server.

Conﬁguring the DHCP Client 8–1