Subject: Protocol Action: Procedure for Defining New DHCP Options to BCP

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 07:46:58 -0500

The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft 'Procedure for Defining New
DHCP Options' <draft-ietf-dhc-new-options-05.txt> as a BCP.  This
document is the product of the Dynamic Host Configuration Working
Group.  The IESG contact persons are Jeffrey Burgan and Thomas Narten.

Technical Summary
 
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) provides a framework
for passing configuration information to hosts on a TCP/IP network.
Configuration parameters and other control information are carried in
tagged data items that are stored in the 'options' field of the DHCP
message.  The data items themselves are also called "options."

The DHCP option space is effectively limited to 128 options at
present. Although there has been much discussion about how to extend
the option space to allow more options, all proposals involve
non-backwards compatable changes to clients. Thus, the remaining
unallocated options are a precious resources -- they can be used with
deployed clients and servers.

This document requests that the IANA only assign new option numbers to
options that have been documented in RFCs and that have been approved
through IETF Consensus.

Working Group Summary

There was strong support for this document in the Working Group, and
no issues were raised  during the Last Call.

Protocol Quality

This specification has been reviewed for the IESG by Thomas Narten.