Re: DHCP Server and Novell

["Michael J. Lewis" <[e-mail]>]

Jason Vannest wrote:
> 
> On this subject.  Are there any freeware DHCP Server that run on
> Novell 3.12 or 4.XX?
> 
> Any disadvantages going this way?
> Novell has a DHCP server available within its NetWare/IP product.  The 
server is effectively free since NetWare/IP is free to those running 
NetWare 4.x.  The server is actually independent of NetWare/IP itself 
and will run on Novell 3.x.  I'm not sure of the licensing ramifications 
on a 3.x platform.		

One major problem that we found with the Novell server is that is does
not correctly handle mobile clients returning to a subnet on which they
have an existing lease.  What happens is a mobile client receives an 
address on subnet A from the Novell server and then without releasing 
this original lease, travels to another DHCP subnet B and receives an 
appropriate address.  Upon return to subnet A (again without releasing 
the address), the client requests to use the address for subnet B on 
subnet A.  The Novell server, rather than issuing a NAK for this 
request, responds with an ACK for the valid lease on subnet A.  The 
Microsoft client we were using does not expect an ACK for an address it 
did not request and after trying the REQUEST one more time, eventually 
decides to use the invalid address from subnet B. 

Novell does issue a NAK to an invalid address if there is no existing 
lease for the client in its database.  Therefore getting one's clients 
to issue releases when they leave subnets would "solve" this problem.
Also, if you don't have mobile clients that move from subnet to subnet, 
this problem will not be apparent.

There are also commercial products available from On Technology 
(IPTrack) and Puzzle Systems (WEBServ).  IPTrack has a variant of the 
same problem listed above.  We are in the process of evaluating the 
latest edition of WEBServ which seems to work OK except that some of the 
DHCP packets are not built properly which can cause options to be 
overlayed or lost.

There may be other DHCP servers for NetWare environments but these are 
the only ones I've examined.