DHCP, DNS, SNMP: Debashis Saha MIS Group, IIM Calcutta Ds@iimcal - Ac.in

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Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP, DNS, SNMP

Debashis Saha
MIS Group, IIM Calcutta
[email protected]
Thursday, May 17, 2007 1
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

First Question

• How does your computer know which IP


to use?

• How does your computer know that


www.iimcal.ac.in is at IP 202.54.116.3?

• How can you track your network’s health?

Thursday, May 17, 2007 2


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

The Internet and Addressing

• All machines on the Internet are accessed via


their IP address
– Dotted quad: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
• Problem: IP addresses are hard to remember and
hard to statically assign on large networks
• Solution: Need to come up with a way to
automatically assign IP addresses and a text based
representation of machine addresses instead of
just 4 numbers

Thursday, May 17, 2007 3


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Addressing Solutions

• Two protocols have been developed to solve


these problems

– DHCP – automatic network configuration (including IP


address)

– DNS – translates textual based names into IP addresses


and vice versa

Thursday, May 17, 2007 4


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP – Dynamic Host Configuration


Protocol

Thursday, May 17, 2007 5


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP

• Allows client machines to receive an IP


address, DNS information, etc
automatically
• Before DHCP came into use, users had to
type in all this information by hand, which
is bad:
– Easy to mistype something when entering by hand
– Manually changing network configuration every time you
move your laptop is a pain
– Bootp resolved some of these issues
• … and DHCP still uses the same port as bootp

Thursday, May 17, 2007 6


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Purpose of DHCP
From RFC-2131 (the Internet standard):
• The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP) provides a framework for passing
configuration information to hosts on a TCP/IP
network.
• DHCP consists of two components:
– a protocol for delivering host-specific configuration
parameters from a DHCP server to a host and
– a mechanism for allocation of network addresses to hosts.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 7


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP functional goals


• A host without a valid IP address locates
and communicates with a DHCP server
• A DHCP server passes configuration
parameters, including an IP address, to the
host
• The DHCP server may dynamically allocate
addresses to hosts and reuse addresses
• Hosts can detect when they require a new IP
address
• Unavailability of DHCP server has minimal
effect on operation of hosts
Thursday, May 17, 2007 8
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP: Basics

• A client leases an IP address from a DHCP


server for a given amount of time
• When lease expires, the client must ask
DHCP server for a new address (clients
attempt to renew lease after 50% of the
lease time has expired)
• Typical leases may last for from 30
seconds to 24 hours, or even longer.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 9


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

What does DHCP do?


• Provides protocol stack, application and
other configuration parameters to hosts
• Eliminates need for individual, manual
configuration for hosts
• Includes administrative controls for
network administrators
• Backward compatible packet format for
BOOTP interoperation (RFC 1542)
• Can coexist with hosts that have pre-
assigned IP addresses and hosts that do
not participate in DHCP
Thursday, May 17, 2007 10
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Design Goals
• Eliminate manual configuration of hosts
• Prevent use of any IP address by more than
one host
• Should not require a server on every subnet
• Allow for multiple DHCP servers
• Provide a mechanism, not a policy
• Provide the same configuration - including
IP address - to a host whenever possible

Thursday, May 17, 2007 11


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

What can you do with DHCP


• Plug-and-play
• Move desktop PCs between offices
• Renumber
• Other restructuring - change subnet masks
• Mobile IP - laptops
• Moving equipment - cartable

Thursday, May 17, 2007 12


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

What DHCP doesn’t do


• Support multiple addresses per interface
• Inform running host that parameters have changed
• Propagate new addresses to DNS
• Support inter-server communication
• Provide authenticated message delivery
• Configure routers and other network equipment
• Design network addressing plan
• Determine other configuration parameters
• Locate other servers

Thursday, May 17, 2007 13


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP: Messages Overview

• Several messages are sent back and forth


between a client and the DHCP server
before it can successfully obtain an IP
address

Thursday, May 17, 2007 14


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP: DISCOVER

• Hardcoding the addresses of DHCP servers


kind of defeats the purpose of automatic
configuration
• Solution: A client using DHCP will broadcast
a DISCOVER message to all computers on
its subnet (addr 255.255.255.255) to
figure out the IP address of any DHCP
servers
• Most routers are configured to pass this
request within the campus or enterprise

Thursday, May 17, 2007 15


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP: OFFER

• (Optionally) sent from server in response


to a DISCOVER
• Contains an IP address, other configuration
information as well (subnet mask, DNS
servers, default gateway, search domains,
etc)
• Note that all DHCP servers that receive a
DISCOVER request may send an OFFER;
– since a client typically does not need more than one IP
address, more messages needed to zero on one IP

Thursday, May 17, 2007 16


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP: REQUEST
• Sent by client to request a certain IP address
– Usually the one sent by an OFFER, but also used to renew
leases. Also can be sent to try to get same address after a
reboot
• This message is broadcast
• Most OSs by default will send a REQUEST for the
first OFFER they receive – this means that if
there is a rogue DHCP server on your subnet, most
clients will ignore the OFFERs from the campus
DHCP servers (since the OFFER from the rogue
server gets to the user’s PC first)!

Thursday, May 17, 2007 17


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP: ACK/NACK

• Sent by server in response to a REQUEST


• ACK: Request accepted, client can start
using the IP it REQUESTed
• NACK: Something is wrong with the client’s
REQUEST (for example they requested an
IP address they’re not supposed to have)

Thursday, May 17, 2007 18


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP: RELEASE

• Sent by client to end a lease

• Not strictly required, but is the “polite” thing to


do if done with the IP (could just let the lease
expire)

• Some clients may not send RELEASEs in an


attempt to keep the same IP address for as long
as possible

Thursday, May 17, 2007 19


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP: Big Picture

Thursday, May 17, 2007 20


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Summary
• DHCP works today as a tool for automatic
configuration of TCP/IP hosts
• It is an open Internet standard and
interoperable client implementations are
widely available
• Provides automation for routine
configuration tasks, once network architect
has configured network and addressing plan
• Ongoing work will extend DHCP with
authentication, DHCP-DNS interaction and
inter-server communication
Thursday, May 17, 2007 21
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP: Conclusion

• Efficient way of assigning computers IP


addresses and delivering configuration
information to those computers

• Does not solve other problem of addressing


– that IP addresses are hard to remember

Thursday, May 17, 2007 22


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

IETF standards

• Formal process for development, review and


acceptance of TCP/IP protocol suite
standards
• Initial specifications published as Internet
Drafts (I-Ds)
• Accepted specifications published as
Request for Comments (RFCs)

Thursday, May 17, 2007 23


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Protocol status

• DHCP has been accepted as a Draft


Standard; the specifications are
published in:
– RFC 2131: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
– RFC 2132: DHCP Options and BOOTP Vendor
Extensions
• Several additional options are in
development

Thursday, May 17, 2007 24


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Implementation status

• DHCP is an open standard, with freely


available specifications
• Can be (and has been) implemented entirely
from the specification
• Commercial implementations are widely
available
• Non-commerical implementations are also
available

Thursday, May 17, 2007 25


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DHCP Resources
• Compilation of DHCP-related WWW links and
other information:
http://www.dhcp.org
• DHCP FAQ (maintained by John Wobus)
[email protected] mailing list (admin
requests to [email protected])
• IETF information can be retrieved from:
http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us
• I-Ds and RFCs can also be retrieved from:
http://www.rfc-editor.org

Thursday, May 17, 2007 26


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS – Domain Name System

Thursday, May 17, 2007 27


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Second Question

• How does your computer know which IP to


use?

• How does your computer know that


www.iimcal.ac.in is at IP 202.54.116.3?

• How can you track your network’s health?

Thursday, May 17, 2007 28


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Domain Name System (DNS)

• The first IP networks distributed host


files on a regular basis
– This became a burden and an automated distributed
solution was needed
• IP Addresses are great for computers
– IP address includes information used for routing.
• IP addresses are tough for humans to
remember.
• IP addresses are impossible to guess.
– ever guessed at the name of a WWW site?

Thursday, May 17, 2007 29


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Hostnames

• DNS is born
• Domain names comprise a hierarchy so that
names are unique, yet easy to remember.
• The domain name system is usually used to
translate a host name into an IP address .
– Ex: www.xxx.org <-> IP 212.87.7.181
• (which one would you rather remember?)

Thursday, May 17, 2007 30


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS: Basics

• Hierarchical namespace

• Distributed system – very few core servers

• Stores other information than simple


hostname <-> IP mappings

• Request/response protocol

Thursday, May 17, 2007 31


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS Hierarchy

edu com org in

rpi albany ac

iimcal
Thursday, May 17, 2007 32
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Host name structure


• Each host name is made up of a sequence of
labels separated by periods.
– Each label can be up to 63 characters
– The total name can be at most 255 characters.
• Examples:
– whitehouse.gov
– barney.the.purple.dinosaur.com
– monica.cs.rpi.edu

Thursday, May 17, 2007 33


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Domain Name

• The domain name for a host is the


sequence of labels that lead from the host
(leaf node in the naming tree) to the top of
the worldwide naming tree.

• A domain is a subtree of the worldwide


naming tree.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 34


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Hierarchical Naming
arpa

com edu gov mil net org us

colordao

cs foobar.cs.colorado.edu

foobar
Thursday, May 17, 2007 35
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Top level domains


• edu, gov, com, net, org, mil, …
• Countries each have a top level domain (2
letter domain name).
– Such as .in, .uk, .it, etc.
• New top level domains include:
.aero .biz .coop .info .name .pro

Thursday, May 17, 2007 36


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Domain Naming System

edu com gov mil org net uk fr

harvard …mit cisco…yahoonasa…nsf arpa…navy acm…ieee

hbs ee physics

www
Thursday, May 17, 2007 37
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS: Architecture
• DNS servers are responsible for one or more
domains of any level
• “Root servers” are maintained throughout the
world (one is in Palo Alto) and are responsible for
all of the top-level domains
– When you register a domain, an entry for that domain is added
to the appropriate root server
• Owners of each regular domain or subdomain
maintain (or outsource) their own DNS servers
containing the correct information

Thursday, May 17, 2007 38


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Name Servers
• Partition hierarchy into zones
edu com gov mil org net uk fr

princeton … mit cisco … yahoo nasa … nsf arpa … navy acm … ieee

cs ee physics

ux01 ux04 Root


name server
Each zone implements two or
more name servers
1. Primary Princeton
name server
… Cisco
name server
2. secondary
CS … EE
name server name server

Thursday, May 17, 2007 39


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Hierarchical Administration - “Zones”


arpa

arpa com in gov mil net org us

ac

iimcal
www.iimcal.ac.in

www

Thursday, May 17, 2007 40


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Administration - Zones

• A zone is a subtree of the DNS tree that is


independently managed
– Second-level domains (“ac.in”) are usually an independent
zone
– Most sub-domains (“iimcal.ac.in”) are also independent.

• A zone must provide multiple name servers.


This server records the members in the
domain.
– You typically need a primary name server and one or more
secondary name servers.
– Secondary retrieves information from primary using a zone
transfer.
Thursday, May 17, 2007 41
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Resolving an address
• A.C.D wants to know about F.E.D
D

C E
Name
servers
A B F G

• Host “A.C.D” asks “B.C.D” (the local name


server) to resolve “F.E.D”
Thursday, May 17, 2007 42
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Resolving an address

• B.C.D doesn’t know the answer.


• It wants to ask the primary domain server for the
“E.D” domain, so it asks the parent of the “B.C”
domain (“D” in this example) to resolve “E.D”.
• D asks H, the root server.
• H doesn’t know the answer, but it’s the top-level
domain and knows that “G.E.D” is the primary
domain server for the “E.D” domain
• B.C.D now knows the primary domain server for the
E.D domain, and can now ask “G.E.D” about “F.E.D”

Thursday, May 17, 2007 43


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Domain servers
• What kind of records can be requested for a given
domain?
– Address translation
– Caching information
– Mail server information
– Authoritative nameserver information
• How is this data requested?
– Each record has a type and certain data associated with it –
clients request records of a certain type from a server

Thursday, May 17, 2007 44


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS Organization
• Distributed Database
– The organization that owns a domain name is responsible
for running a DNS server that can provide the mapping
between hostnames within the domain to IP addresses.
– So - some machine run by RPI is responsible for
everything within the rpi.edu domain.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 45


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS Distributed Database


• There is one primary server for a domain,
and typically a number of secondary
servers containing replicated databases.

rpi.edu DNS server

rpi.edu
rpi.edu rpi.edu
rpi.edu
DNS DB
DNS DB DNS
DNSDBDB

Authoritative Replicas

Thursday, May 17, 2007 46


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS Clients
• A DNS client is called a resolver.

• A call to gethostbyname()is handled by a


resolver (typically part of the client).

• Most Unix workstations have the file


/etc/resolv.conf that contains the local
domain and the addresses of DNS servers
for that domain.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 47


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

/etc/resolv.conf

domain rpi.edu
128.113.1.5
128.113.1.3

Thursday, May 17, 2007 48


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

nslookup

• nslookup is an interactive resolver that


allows the user to communicate directly
with a DNS server.

• nslookup is usually available on Unix


workstations. (dig and host are also DNS
clients).

Thursday, May 17, 2007 49


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS Servers

• Servers handle requests for their domain


directly.
• Servers handle requests for other domains
by contacting remote DNS server(s).
• Servers cache external mappings.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 50


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Server - Server Communication


• If a server is asked to provide the mapping
for a host outside it’s domain (and the
mapping is not in the server cache):
– The server finds a nameserver for the target domain.
– The server asks the nameserver to provide the host
name to IP translation.
• To find the right nameserver, use DNS!

Thursday, May 17, 2007 51


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS Data

• DNS databases contain more than just


hostname-to-address records:
– Name server records NS
– Hostname aliases CNAME
– Mail Exchangers MX
– Host Information HINFO

Thursday, May 17, 2007 52


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

The Root DNS Server

• The root server needs to know the address


of 1st (and many 2nd) level domain
nameservers.

edu com org jp

rpi albany
Thursday, May 17, 2007 53
Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Server Operation

• If a server has no clue about where to find


the address for a hostname, ask the root
server.
• The root server will tell you what
nameserver to contact.
• A request may get forwarded a few times.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 54


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS Message Format

HEADER
HEADER
QUERIES
QUERIES
Response
Response RESOURCE
RESOURCE RECORDS
RECORDS
Response
Response AUTHORITY
AUTHORITY RECORDS
RECORDS
Response
Response ADDITIONAL
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
INFORMATION

Thursday, May 17, 2007 55


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

DNS Message Header

• query identifier
16 bit fields

• flags
• # of questions
• # of RRs


# of authority RRs
# of additional RRs } Response

Thursday, May 17, 2007 56


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Message Flags

• QR: Query=0, Response=1


• AA: Authoritative Answer
• TC: response truncated (> 512 bytes)
• RD: recursion desired
• RA: recursion available
• rcode: return code

Thursday, May 17, 2007 57


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Recursion

• A request can indicate that recursion is


desired - this tells the server to find out
the answer (possibly by contacting other
servers).
• If recursion is not requested - the
response may be a list of other name
servers to contact.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 58


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Question Format

• Name: domain name (or IP address)

• Query type (A, NS, MX, …)

• Query class (1 for IP)

Thursday, May 17, 2007 59


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Response Resource Record

• Domain Name
• Response type
• Class (IP)
• Time to live (in seconds)
• Length of resource data
• Resource data

Thursday, May 17, 2007 60


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

UDP & TCP

• Both UDP and TCP are used:


– TCP for transfers of entire database to secondary
servers (replication).
– UDP for lookups
– If more than 512 bytes in response - requestor
resubmits request using TCP.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 61


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Lots more

• This is not a complete description !


• If interested - look at:
– RFC 1034: DNS concepts and facilities.
– RFC 1035: DNS implementation and protocol
specification.
– play with nslookup.
– Look at code for BIND (DNS server code).

Thursday, May 17, 2007 62


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

References

• RFC 1034
• RFC 1035

Thursday, May 17, 2007 75


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

SNMP - Simple Network


Management Protocol

Thursday, May 17, 2007 76


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

Third Question

• How does your computer know which IP to


use?

• How does your computer know that


www.iimcal.ac.in is at IP 202.54.116.3?

• How can you track your network’s


health?

Thursday, May 17, 2007 77


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

SNMP is …
• A network management tool
– Designed to allow data acquisition from SNMP capable
network equipment
– Allows control of SNMP capable equipment by the distant
controller
• Based on inquiry/response architecture
with simple response parameters

Thursday, May 17, 2007 78


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

SNMP is …
• Used for management of fault conditions –
prevention of and response to network
failure
• Designed to manage performance – coping
with deterioration of performance due to
congestion, changing traffic conditions

Thursday, May 17, 2007 79


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

SNMP Message Protocol


• Messages use UDP, ports 161 (requests/responses)
and 162 (notifications)
• Message types:
– GetRequest: request values of variables from device
– GetNextRequest: request value of variable following the one
supplied
– GetResponse: return values
– SetRequest: instruct device to set values of variables
– Trap: from device - notify monitor / manager of value change

Thursday, May 17, 2007 80


Lecture on DHCP, DNS & SNMP Debashis Saha

To know more on SNMP

• “Essential SNMP”, Douglas R Mauro & Kevin


J Schmidt, Shroff Publishers &
Distributors, Calcutta, 2001

Thursday, May 17, 2007 81

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