[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Multiple dhcp servers.



On Sat, 26 Jan 2002 10:20, Dave Watkins wrote:
> At 11:54 25/01/2002 +0000, Fred Clausen wrote:
> >At the moment I have one dhcp server running ISC dhcpd, and its working
> >fine. However I wish to add another in case the main one goes down. Is it
> >as simple as setting it up on another machine with similar config? My
> >worry is that a client will request an address and both server's will
> >respond, potentially causing problems. Is there a master/slave setup I can
> >use? Or shall I simply set up a second one.
>
> As far as I know this isn't possible for a few reasons. The lease table for
> IP's already allocated is stored in a file on the system. To have failover
> your second machine would have to have a copy of this file locally.

Or you can have two DHCP servers, each of which allocates half the address 
space.

> Secondly as you mentioned both servers will respond and whichever machine
> reply get to the client first is the one it will accept. If you could get

The DHCP protocol is designed to handle this.  The DHCP client will then 
acknowledge the server that assigned the address it's going to use.

> The other option is have the second machine as a complete failover and use
> a heartbeat much like the current mailserver thread is going

That's an option too.

-- 
http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/     Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/postal/       Postal SMTP/POP benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/projects.html Projects I am working on
http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/     My home page



Reply to: