Technical Summary:
This document updates RFC2131 to change the DHCP server's behavior
with respect to the DHCP client identifier option. Prior to this
update, DHCP servers were expected not to return the client
identifier to the client in DHCPOFFER, DHCPACK and DHCPNAK messages.
Following this update, DHCP servers are expected to return the
client identifier in all three of these messages. This resolves a
problem where in cases where the chaddr field of the client
identifier is zero, the client can't accurately identify DHCP
messages as being directed specifically to it.
Working Group Summary:
There was essentially unanimous support for this document, and the
document received wide review.
Document Quality:
This is a relatively minor change to the existing DHCPv4 protocol,
and is not expected to create interoperability problems. The
authors have done a test implementation with a Cisco DHCP server,
and tested this against five DHCP clients, and no problems were
observed. It's always possible that some client somewhere will
break, but these results are encouraging.
Personnel:
Ted Lemon is the Document Shepherd. Ralph Droms is the responsible
Area Director.