Please Whitelist This Site? I know everyone hates ads. But please understand that I am providing premium content for free that takes hundreds of hours of time to research and write. I don't want to go to a pay-only model like some sites, but when more and more people block ads, I end up working for free. And I have a family to support, just like you. :) If you like The TCP/IP Guide, please consider the download version. It's priced very economically and you can read all of it in a convenient format without ads. If you want to use this site for free, I'd be grateful if you could add the site to the whitelist for Adblock. To do so, just open the Adblock menu and select "Disable on tcpipguide.com". Or go to the Tools menu and select "Adblock Plus Preferences...". Then click "Add Filter..." at the bottom, and add this string: "@@||tcpipguide.com^$document". Then just click OK. Thanks for your understanding! Sincerely, Charles Kozierok Author and Publisher, The TCP/IP Guide

NOTE: Using software to mass-download the site degrades the server and is prohibited. If you want to read The TCP/IP Guide offline, please consider licensing it. Thank you.

The TCP/IP Guide  9  TCP/IP Application Layer Protocols, Services and Applications (OSI Layers 5, 6 and 7)       9  TCP/IP Network Configuration and Management Protocols (BOOTP, DHCP, SNMP and RMON)            9  Host Configuration and TCP/IP Host Configuration Protocols (BOOTP and DHCP)                 9  TCP/IP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)

TCP/IP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) 1 2 3 DHCP Address Assignment and Dynamic Address Allocation and Management

DHCP: Building on BOOTP's Strengths

A new host configuration protocol was needed to serve modern networks, which would move away from static, permanent IP address assignment. The IETF supplied this in the form of the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), first formalized in RFC 1541, October 1993. (Actually, it was really originally specified in RFC 1531 in that same month, but due to minor errors in 1531 the standard was quickly revised and 1541 published.)

Of course, it's not like BOOTP was a bad protocol or anything. It certainly worked well, for what it was capable of doing. It was also already widely deployed. Given these factors, it really made no make sense to start over from scratch with DHCP. This was especially so given that such a decision would have meant dealing with the inevitable “painful” transition, as well as compatibility problems associated with having both BOOTP and DHCP around for many years.

So, instead of tossing out BOOTP, DHCP was built upon it as a foundation. In it simplest form, DHCP consists of two major components: an address allocation mechanism, and a protocol that allows clients to request, and servers to provide, configuration information. DHCP performs both functions in a manner similar to BOOTP, but with improvements.

TCP/IP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) 1 2 3 DHCP Address Assignment and Dynamic Address Allocation and Management