> > (1) Linux machines are usually switched on during all the day,
> > so assignment of dynamic IP addresses doesn't improve anything.
>
> Right and wrong: If you want to reconfigure a running machine now you
> have to login to the machine, maybe bring it down and reconfigure.
> With perfect DHCP you could just change the address in your DHCP
> servers and in your BIND, and then wait for a while.
> Summary: DHCP is not only useful for dialup connections!
I haven't ever said it's useful only for dialup connections -- an another
example is a company network with hundreds of DOS/Windoze PC's each of them
ocassionally using IP.
The dynamic reconfiguration of the hosts would be very nice, but it isn't
so simple as it looks: no TCP connections can survive such network
reconfiguration, not mentioning NFS and some other UDP services. Therefore
the total effect is almost the same as in case of reboot.
> Maybe an ifconfig that can query DHCP servers would be nice. You
> could still use cron to recheck the addresses validity from time to
> time.
> > (4) All DHCP servers should be able to handle BOOTP requests.
> Huh!? Don't they? DHCP is a set of vendor extensions (RFC1533, I
> guess) together with a new protocol specification; thus every DHCP
> reply is also a BOOTP reply (if I don't have tomatoes on my eyes).
Yes, they certainly do with exception of few buggy implementations
that don't respond to queries without DHCP-specific options.
> A separate server/client would be fine, although there is on for
> SUNOS 4.1 that doesn't run on more recent OS's.
I think so, too.
Martin