Chapter 29. BOOTP and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)

SOME OF THE MAIN TOPICS IN THIS CHAPTER ARE

What Is BOOTP?

Taking BOOTP One Step Further: DHCP

An Example: Installing and Configuring a DHCP Server on Windows 2000/2003

Using DHCP with Red Hat Linux

You should read this chapter and Chapter 30, "Network Name Resolution," as though they were one, because they cover both sides of the coin when talking about how computers are uniquely identified on a network. This chapter deals with the specifics of how computers can be set up to automatically receive addressing and other information when they boot. This relieves the system administrator from having to manually configure each computer individually every time a global change is made. Chapter 30, discusses how other computers on the network go about determining the particular address of another computer on the network by registering themselves and querying the Domain Name System (DNS) database.

BOOTP is an old protocol. DHCP also has been around awhile. However, DHCP basically is a protocol that builds on and expands the capabilities that were first provided by BOOTP. For this historical reason, and the fact that BOOTP still is in use in many networks, both are examined in this chapter. Most modern DHCP servers, including the Windows 2000 and 2003 servers, and the Unix/Linux family of operating systems, still support BOOTP.