Subject: [dhcwg] is Solicit required in DHCPv6?

From: Richard Hussong <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 18:56:07 -0500

Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't see anything in dhcpv6-28
that says that the first message sent from a client to a server must be
a Solicit.  Assuming that a client happens to know the server ID of a
DHCPv6 server, is it legal for the first message sent to the server to
be a Request (it must be multicast, of course)?

How about an Information-request?  If so, is it legal for the
Information-request message to be unicast if the client also happens to
know an address for the server?

- Richard Hussong

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From: "Bernie Volz (EUD)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 21:59:17 -0600

Define what you mean by "first message"?

When a client starts (restarts), if it has existing addresses that it
obtained from a DHCP server (and the lifetimes had not expired while
it was down), it would first send a CONFIRM message to
determine if these addresses are still valid (since the client may
have been moved to a new network while it was down). If no "NotOnLink"
status is returned, the client can continue to use the addresses and
may, at an appropriate time, send Renew or other messages.

In this case, if a client needed additional addresses (such as 
temporary ones), there is no reason why it could not just send a
Request to the server it used to get earlier addresses.

If you're trying to simplify the message exchange, consider the
Solicit w/Rapid Commit.

If you're to develop an access concentrator (such as for dial-up,
GGSN, etc) and its acting as a proxy, it would be dangerous to
assume that Solicit can be skipped for all but the first client
especially if you're not preconfigured to contact specific servers
(or relays). The reason is that things like load balancing (see
draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-loadb-02.txt) could get you in trouble as
you could be sending requests to the wrong server (and therefore
not get service or very delayed service).

- Bernie

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Hussong [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 6:56 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [dhcwg] is Solicit required in DHCPv6?

- Richard Hussong