[SLE] Re: ISC dhclient.conf for MediaOne?

Marty: Like I said, I don't use dhclient, therefore I have no dhclient.conf All my attempts to use dhclient (the versions with SuSE 6.2 through 6.4) with MediaOne failed miserably. dhclient refuses to accept ip offers from MediaOne's dhcpserver. The echoed message when run in verbose mode is "offer was not acceptable" After 5 or 6 ip address offers and refusals, dhclient gives up and goes into sleep mode. On the other hand, dhcpcd works flawlessly. I run dhcpcd manually after bootup, which is fine for me since I reboot this machine (an IPMasquing firewall) only once every two or three months. dhcpcd runs purely from command-line arguments: no config file. The version of dhcpcd I use is the one updated 4/23; the current one is 1.3.18 rev. 5/26 to be had from: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/network/daemons/ (Haven't tried the dhcpcd package included with SuSE 6.4 --it may well be the same revision) In general, as far as my foggy and microscopic understanding of the process goes, even if a machine has "obtain address by dhcp" specified, the NIC obtains a temporary address while it initializes until it gets a real one from the DHCP server. SuSE initializes NICs with an address in the 192.168.x.x range, while MediaOne's M$-centric seems to expect the older 0.0.0.0 Therefore, if I allow SuSE to assign the NIC its default DHCP address or if I assign such a 192.168.x.x address manually, I find that frequently dhcpcd will not displace that temporary address and netmask with the correct one from MediaOne's dhcp server. My workaround has been to assign invalid fixed addresses to the interface where I wish to use dhcpcd: either 0.0.0.0 or 0.0.0.1 --they both seem to work equally well, but the second doesn't seem to produce an error message at boot. YaST won't let you assign such addresses, so I edit /etc/rc.config directly. After bootup I run dhcpcd and ifconfig on the interface, e.g. dhcpcd eth0 and ifconfig eth0 --and lo, the MediaOne server coughs up an address and correct netmask almost instantly, and I'm in business. Haven't had it fail yet. Nor do I ever have any problems with lease renewals, provided I've specified the interface when I first invoked dhcpcd. If the interface was not specified, dhcpcd probes all eth interfaces and generally mucks up the ones where it doesn't find a dhcp server, necessitating a reboot in order to straighten out the eth1 interface where the rest of my network is. In summary, I've never gotten dhclient to work even once with MediaOne. I have, however found dhcpcd to be a perfectly reliable solution for a SuSE 6.whatever MASQ-ing firewall to keep my motley little assemblage of 'doze, OS/2 and Linux clients connected to the 'net. Don't forget to check out the "official" collection of cablemodem (including RR) pages: http://www.cablemodeminfo.com/linbasics.x.html-ssi Regards, --Kevin On Wed, 2 Aug 2000 07:26:37 -0400 (EDT), Marty Reynolds wrote:

Deat Kevin - I sure thank you for your note.

My mail was a little scrambled in that I exchanged dhcp.conf for dhclient.conf in one place

Then you told me to get & run dhcpd manually after bogus "ifconfig -h?" (does this all mean I'm stuck with just one NIC card if I can re-set dhcp-client-identifier on startup?)

So I'm going to sunsite & look for another dhclient & will try'n struggle with your suggestion

Could you send me your dhclient.conf file for Media1?

Thanks a lot & please excuse all the dialog,

Marty

In article you wrote:

...

Don't do it --it won't work. Neither does the DHClient in 6.4. The client rejects all ip address offers from the server; after 5 or 6 the client goes into sleep mode. Get the current dhcpcd from sunsite.unc.edu Configure your NIC with a bogus fixed address for initialization, run dhcpcd manually from the command prompt after boot with only the interface for an argument (dhcpcd eth0) and you should be in business.

...

The identical setup & cable modem works great here. But I did waste three days at first fiddling around with that darn DHClient before realizing I needed something else.

...

--Kevin

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