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Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:42:46 -0800
From: Tim Kientzle <kientzle@acm.org>
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To: Danny Braniss <danny@cs.huji.ac.il>
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Subject: Re: Wish List
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Danny Braniss wrote:
> this is what i did for -current if using PXE boot.
> 
> [ import DHCP tags into kernel env, then use that to
 > load addition rc.conf files ... ]

Nice, but what if you're doing a PXE boot?

Maybe there's some way for dhclient to register
DHCP information somewhere that other programs
can get access to it.

A robust solution would need to accomodate systems
with multiple DHCP-configured interfaces (that is,
DHCP information must be tracked on a per-interface
basis).  I've often wondered if DHCP client
support shouldn't just be moved into the kernel.
Rather than running a userland DHCP client, you
ask the network interface to DHCP configure itself,
(Maybe "ifconfig xl0 -dhcp"?) and can then later ask
that interface for relevant DHCP information.
(An ifconfig option to export DHCP tags stored
in the interface itself?)

It's a tough call, though; there's a lot of
practical advantages to having DHCP in userland.
On the other hand, we already have DHCP in the
kernel for PXE booting, so ....

Tim