INTERNET DRAFT                                                Mike Henry
                                                             Intel Corp.
                                                       November 16, 1998


                     DHCP Option 61 UUID Type Definition
                   <draft-henry-DHCP-opt61-UUID-type-00.txt>


Status of this Memo
   This document is an Internet Draft.  Internet Drafts are working
   documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas,
   and its Working Groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet Drafts.

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Notice
   All product and company names mentioned herein might be trademarks
   of their respective owners.


Abstract
   The DHCP [1] mechanism for identifying the client as a unique
   entity is the DHCP client-identifier option (code 61) [2]. This
   draft defines for Option 61 a specific type and type number of a
   client-identifier based on generated UUIDs [3]. These identifiers
   are guaranteed to be, or are very, very likely to be unique across
   time and all clients.


1.0 Introduction
   DHCP Option 61 defines a client identifier that is expected to be
   unique within the network environment in which the client machine
   resides.  It is the responsibility of the vendor or the system
   administrator to install/use identifiers that meet this requirement.

   It would be useful to have available the means to generate client
   identifiers that are unique regardless of where the client is
   installed. This would, for instance, allow client machine
   manufacturers to pre-install the client identifier with a very high
   degree of confidence that the identifier will be unique.






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2.0 Proposed change to DHCP Vendor Option 61

   Client-identifier

   DHCP clients use this option to specify their unique identifier. This
   value is expected to be unique for all clients in an administrative
   domain.

   DHCP servers use this value to index their database of address
   bindings. DHCP servers SHOULD treat identifiers as opaque objects.

   For correct identification of clients, each client's client-identifier
   MUST be unique among the client-identifiers used on the subnet to
   which the client is attached, and SHOULD be unique across all domains.
   Vendors and system administrators are responsible for choosing
   client-identifiers that meet this requirement for uniqueness.

   The client identifier MAY be one of several types defined here:

   The client identifier MAY be a UUID (Universal Unique ID). In this
   case, the Type field MUST be 254 and the length field MUST be 18.
   The format and content of the UUID MUST be as specified in the RPC
   Specification from the Open Group [3]

   The client identifier MAY consist of type-value pairs similar to the
   'htype'/'chaddr' fields defined in [3]. For instance, it MAY consist
   of a hardware type and hardware address. In this case the type field
   SHOULD be one of the ARP hardware types defined in STD2 [22].

   A hardware type of 0 (zero) SHOULD be used when the value field
   contains an identifier other than a UUID or hardware address (e.g. a
   fully qualified domain name).

   The code for this option is 61, and its minimum length is 2.

    Code   Len   Type  Client-Identifier
   +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
   |  61 |  n  | t1  | i1  | i2  | ...
   +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
















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4.0 References

   [1]     Droms, R. "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol", RFC 2131

   [2]     Alexander,S. and Droms, R., "DHCP Options and BOOTP Vendor
           Extension" RFC 2132.

   [3]     CAE Specification
           DCE 1.1: Remote Procedure Call
           Document Number: C706
           Universal Unique Identifier Appendix
           Copyright (c) 1997 The Open Group
           http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9629399/toc.htm


5.0 Author's Address


               Mike Henry
               Intel Corporation, MS JF3-408
               5200 NE Elam Young Pkwy
               Hillsboro, OR  97124

               Phone: (503) 264-9689
               Email: mike.henry@intel.com






























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