Interoperation Between DHCP and BOOTP (RFC1534)

Publishing Venue

Internet Society Requests For Comment (RFCs)

Related People

R. Droms: AUTHOR

Abstract

DHCP provides a superset of the functions provided by BOOTP. This document describes the interactions between DHCP and BOOTP network participants.

Network Working Group R. Droms

Request for Comments: 1534 Bucknell University

Category: Standards Track October 1993

Interoperation Between DHCP and BOOTP

Status of this Memo

This RFC specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the

Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for

improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet

Official Protocol Standards" for the standardization state and status

of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

DHCP provides a superset of the functions provided by BOOTP. This

document describes the interactions between DHCP and BOOTP network

participants.

1. Introduction

The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) provides a mechanism

for transmitting configuration parameters to hosts using the TCP/IP

protocol suite. The format of DHCP messages is based on the format

of BOOTP messages, so that, in certain circumstances, DHCP and BOOTP

participants may exchange messages. This document specifies the ways

in which DHCP and BOOTP participants may interoperate.

DHCP introduces a small change in terminology intended to clarify the

meaning of one of the fields. What was the "vendor extensions" field

in BOOTP has been re-named the "options" field in DHCP. Similarly,

the tagged data items that were used inside the BOOTP "vendor

extensions" field, which were formerly referred to as "vendor

extensions", are now termed simply "options". This document will

refer to BOOTP vendor extensions and DHCP options uniformly as

"options".

Throughout this document, DHCP messages that include a 'DHCP message

type' option will be referred to by the type of the message; e.g., a

DHCP message with 'DHCP message type' option type 1 will be referred

to as a "DHCPDISCOVER" message.

2. BOOTP clients and DHCP servers

The format of DHCP messages is defined to be compatible with the

format of BOOTP messages, so that existing BOOTP clients can

interoperate with DHCP servers. Any message received by a DHCP

server that includes a 'DHCP message type' (51) option is assumed to

have been sent by a DHCP client. Messages without the DHCP Message

Type option are assumed to have been sent by a BOOTP client. Support

of BOOTP clients by a DHCP server is optional at the discretion of

the local system administrator. If a DHCP server that is not

configured to support BOOTP clients receives a BOOTREQUEST message

from a BOOTP client, that server silently discards the BOOTREQUEST<...