Re: [dhcwg] What sorts of services does DHCP configure?

[Ted Lemon <[e-mail]>]

On Oct 15, 2013, at 6:59 PM, Sten Carlsen <[e-mail]> wrote:
> I tend to look at this from the opposite side, what are the services that need to be configured and infomation that needs to be delivered? And as a consequence what are the tools?
> What is in the toolbox now and what is missing? Some of the missing tools are leading to ugly hacks now.
> The answer might not be DHCP, but then what is it?

I don't think the missing tools are causing us to do ugly hacks.   I think that the problems I am talking about are actually being handled perfectly well.   E.g., SMTP is generally configured manually by the end user, and there is no way to make this better using DHCP, which is why it hasn't been done.   NTP is generally hard-coded as an FQDN into the operating system, but overridable by the end-user.

Although there is an NTP option for DHCP, and it is implemented in some cases, it is not widely used, for reasons that seem obvious to me: NTP is required for replay detection, and so trusting the DHCP server to tell you what your NTP server is isn't secure.   There is actually a standard in the RFC editor queue that makes support for the NTP option mandatory in home routers, which I expect will happen, and I expect that roughly zero devices will actually request this option on a home network.   It's possible that IoT devices will, but I'll believe it when I see it.