how to make my dhcp client always reuse it's fixed address

[LeVA <leva@az.isten.hu>]

Hi!

I have a dhcp (dhcp3) server with the following configuration:


boot-unknown-clients false;

subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
    authoritative;
    range 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.254;
    option routers 192.168.0.1;
    option broadcast-address 192.168.0.255;

    host leva {
        hardware ethernet 00:50:8D:46:E9:4B;
        fixed-address 192.168.0.3;
    }
}


The client has minimal configuration:

request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers,
        domain-name, domain-name-servers,
        netbios-name-servers, netbios-scope;


And here comes my problem:

When my dhcp server is down, my dhcp client can not connect to it (this is 
clear for me :) But if my client can not connect to the server, it gives up 
the DHCPDISCOVER query after the timeout, and then I end up with no ip 
address configured (my eth0 device won't have an ip address). Is it possible 
to configure the dhcp client (or the server, I don't know which one has such 
a feature) to reuse it's previous address, if it can not connect to the dhcp 
server. In the dhclient3 man I read that it will reuse that address, if it is 
in the dhcp.leases file, and it is not expired. Is it possible to "turn off" 
this expire feature for fixed-address hosts, so they can always reuse their 
previous address?

I hope it makes sense what I'm writing :)

Thanks!

Daniel


-- 
LeVA