Chapter 7

Dynamic Host Configuration

Protocol (DHCP)

A Network & System

Administration Perspective

1
 Introduction
• DHCP is s a network service that enables host
computers to be automatically assigned settings
from a server.
 Computers configured to be DHCP clients have no
control over the settings they receive from the DHCP
server.
 The configuration is transparent to the computer's user.
• The most common settings provided by a DHCP
server to DHCP clients include:
 IP address and Subnet Mask
 IP address of the default-gateway to use
 IP addresses of the DNS servers to use
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 Introduction…
• However, a DHCP server can also supply
configuration properties such as:
 Host Name: Eg. www, mail, …
 Domain Name: Eg. ambou.edu.et, aau.edu.et
 Time Server: ntp
 Print Server
• Advantages of using DHCP includes:
 Changes to the network need only be changed at the
DHCP server.
 It is also easier to integrate new computers into the
network.
 Conflicts in IP address allocation are also reduced.
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 How DHCP works?
• Manual allocation (MAC address)
 Using DHCP to identify the unique hardware address of each
network card connected to the network.
 Continually supplying a constant configuration each time the
DHCP client makes a request to the DHCP server using that
network device.
 This ensures that a particular address is assigned automatically
to that network card, based on it's MAC address.
• Dynamic allocation (address pool)
 The DHCP server will assign an IP address from a pool of
addresses (sometimes also called a range or scope) for a period
of time or lease.
 This way, the clients will be receiving their configuration
properties dynamically and on a "first come, first served“ basis
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 How DHCP works….
 When a DHCP client is no longer on the network for a
specified period, the configuration is expired and
released back to the address pool for use by other DHCP
Clients.
• Automatic allocation
 The DHCP automatically assigns an IP address
permanently to a device, selecting it from a pool of
available addresses.
 DHCP is used to assign a temporary address to a client,
but a DHCP server can allow an infinite lease time.

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 DHCP Server Configuration
• DHCP Server configuration on ‘ubuntu’ follows the following
steps:
 Installation of the dhcp service (dhcpd)
sudo apt-get install isc-dhcp-server
Note: Edit the /etc/dhcp/dhcp.conf file to change the default confituration.
 Configuration
 Most commonly, what you want to do is assign an IP address randomly. This can
be done with settings as follows:
# minimal sample /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.1.150 192.168.1.200;
option routers 192.168.1.254;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.1, 192.168.1.2;
option domain-name "mydomain.example";
}
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 Configuration….
 This will result in the DHCP server giving clients an IP
address from the range 192.168.1.150-192.168.1.200.
 It will lease an IP address for 600 seconds if the client
doesn't ask for a specific time frame.
 Otherwise the maximum (allowed) lease will be 7200
seconds.
 The server will also "advise" the client to use
192.168.1.254 as the default-gateway
 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 as its DNS servers.
• After changing the config file you have to restart
the dhcpd:
 sudo /etc/init.d/isc-dhcp-server restart
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Name Server and Configuration
• The Domain Name System (DNS) is a distributed
database.
 This allows local control of the segments of the overall
database, yet the data in each segment is available across
the entire network through a client-server scheme.
• DNS's distributed database is indexed by domain
names.
 Each domain name is essentially just a path in a large
inverted tree, called the domain name space.
• DNS's tree can branch any number of ways at each
intersection point, or node.
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 Name Server …
• The depth of the tree is limited
to 127 levels.
 Each node in the tree has a text
label (without dots) that can be up
to 63 characters long.
 A null (zero-length) label is
reserved for the root.
 Domain names are always read
from the node toward the root,
with dots separating the names in
the path.
 When the root node's label
appears by itself, it is written as a
single dot (.) for convenience.
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 Name Server …
 DNS requires that sibling nodes have
different labels.
 Restriction guarantees that a domain
name uniquely identifies a single node
in the tree.

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 Name Server…
• The domain name of a
domain is the same as the
domain name of the node
at the very top of the
domain.
• So for example, the top of
the purdue.edu domain is
a node named
purdue.edu

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 Name Server…
• Any domain name in the
subtree is considered a
part of the domain.
• Because a domain name
can be in many subtrees,
it can also be in many
domains.
• For example, the domain
name pa.ca.us is part of
the ca.us domain and also
part of the us domain

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 Internet Domain Name Space
• The original top-level domains divided the Internet domain name space
organizationally into seven domains:
 com
 Commercial organizations, such as Hewlett-Packard (hp.com), Sun Microsystems (sun.com), and
IBM (ibm.com).
 edu
 Educational organizations, such as Ambo University (ambou.edu) and Purdue University
(purdue.edu).
 gov
 Government organizations, such as INSA (insa.gov) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (mfa.gov).
 mil
 Military organizations, such as the U.S. Army (army.mil ) and Navy (navy.mil ).
 net
 Organizations providing network infrastructure, such as EthioTelecom (ethiotelecom.net) and
UUNET (uu.net).
 org
 Formerly, noncommercial organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org ). Like
net, however, restrictions on org were removed in 1996.
 int
 International organizations, such as NATO (nato.int).

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 Delegation
• Decentralize administration in DNS is achieved
through delegation.
 An organization administering a domain can divide it
into subdomains.
 Each of those subdomains can be delegated to other
organizations.
 An organization becomes responsible for maintaining all
the data in that subdomain.
 It can freely change the data, and even divide up its
subdomain into more subdomains and delegate those.

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 Delegation…
 Not all organizations delegate away
their whole domain.
 A domain may have several delegated
subdomains and also contain hosts that
don't belong in the subdomains.
 For example, the Ambo University has
a campus at Awaro and Woliso. So it
might have a awaro.ambou.edu.et
subdomain and a woliso.ambou.edu.et
subdomain.

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 Name Servers and Zones
• The programs that store information about the
domain name space are called name servers.
• Name servers generally have complete information
about some part of the domain name space (a
zone), which they load from a file or from another
name server.
 The other name server is called Forwarder.
• The name server is then said to have authority for
that zone. Name servers can be authoritative for
multiple zones, too.

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 Zones…
• All top-level domains, and
many domains at the
second level and lower,
such as berkeley.edu and
hp.com, are broken into
smaller, more manageable
units by delegation.
• These units are called
zones.

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 Zone Data Files
• Most entries in zone data files are called DNS
resource records.
• DNS lookups are case-insensitive, so you can enter
names in your zone data files in uppercase,
lowercase, or mixed case.
 Commonly all lowercase is used.

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 Types of DNS Resource Records
• SOA record
 Indicates authority for this zone (Start Of Authority)
• NS record
 Lists a name server for this zone
• A record
 Name-to-address mapping
• PTR records
 Address-to-name mapping
• CNAME records
 Canonical name (for aliases)
• MX records
 Records for Mail Exchange server
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 Example
 ; ; NS Record;
ambou.edu.et. IN NS ns1.ambou.edu.et
ambou.edu.et. IN NS ns2.ambou.edu.et
 ;; Mail Exchange
ambou.edu.et. IN MX mail.ambou.edu.et
 ;;A Records
intranet.ambou.edu.et. IN A 10.5.100.9
medsims.ambou.edu.et. IN A 10.5.100.56
 ; ; PTR Addresses
9.100.5.102.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR
intranet.ambou.edu.et. 56.100.5.10.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR
medsims.ambou.edu.et
 ; ; Aliases
medicine.ambou.edu.et. IN CNAME
medsims.ambou.edu.et.
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 Resolver
• Resolvers are the clients that access name servers.
Programs running on a host that need information
from the domain name space use the resolver.
• The resolver handles the following tasks:
 Querying a name server
 Interpreting responses (which may be resource records
or an error)
 Returning the information to the programs that
requested it

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 Name Space Resolution
• Name servers are adept at retrieving data from the
domain name space.
• They have to be, given the limited intelligence of
most resolvers.
• Not only can they give you data from zones for
which they're authoritative, they can also search
through the domain name space to find data for
which they're not authoritative.
• This process is called name resolution or simply
resolution.

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 Resolution…
• Because the namespace is structured as an inverted
tree, a name server needs only one piece of
information to find its way to any point in the tree:
 The domain names and addresses of the root name
servers
 A name server can issue a query to a root name server for
any domain name in the domain name space, and the
root name server starts the name server on its way.

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 Resolution Process

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 Adding More Name Servers
• Primary and Slave Name Servers
 In large networks it is a good idea to define name servers
and give them authority.
 Primary Name Server is Authoritative
 Secondary Name Server is active when Primary NS fails
• Caching Only Name Servers
 The name implies that the only function this server
performs is looking up data and caching it.
 They are not authoritative for any zones (except
0.0.127.in-addr.arpa).

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 BIND
• BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) is the
default name server for Linux OS.
• Installation and Configuration:
 Update your server and Install BIND on it. Execute the
following commands one by one.
$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install bind9 bind9utils bind9-doc
 Before proceeding you can optionally set bind9 to IPv4
mode.
$sudo nano /etc/default/bind9
 Add "-4" to the OPTIONS variable. Then save and exit. It
should look like the following:
OPTIONS="-4 -u bind"
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 The End

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