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You might think that a single packet would be sufficient for the protocol to work properly.


When the DHCP server receives the broadcast packet, it will send another broadcast packet (remember that the client does not necessarily have its IP address and therefore cannot be reached directly) containing all the information required for the client. To do this, the technique used is broadcasting: to find and talk to a DHCP server, the machine will simply send a special broadcast packet (broadcast on 255.255.255.255 with other information like the type of request, the connection ports…) on the local network. When a machine is started, it has no information about its network configuration, and especially, the user does not have to do anything special to find an IP address. The basic communication mechanism is BOOTP (with UDP frame). In a network, we can have only one machine with a fixed IP address. This machine will be the base for all DHCP requests, so it must have a fixed IP address.

A DHCP server can return BOOTP or configuration parameters specific to a given host.įirst of all, you need a DHCP server that distributes IP addresses. The DHCP protocol is mainly used to distribute IP addresses on a network, but it was originally designed as a complement to the BOOTP (Bootstrap Protocol) which is used for example when installing a machine over a network (BOOTP is used in close cooperation with a TFTP server on which the client will find the files to be uploaded and copied to the hard disk). The main goal is to simplify the administration of a network. You only have to specify to the computer to find an IP address by itself by DHCP. without any particular intervention) its configuration (mainly, its network configuration). It is a protocol that allows a computer connecting to a network to get dynamically (i.e. In this tutorial, we are going to see What is DHCP protocol and how does it work? DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.
