D-O-R-A DHCP Fundamentals

[vasanth_edw]

Discover - Broadcast

Offer - Unicast

Request - Broadcast

Ack - Unicast

How it is possible that OFFER and ACK sent by DHCP server is Unicast when Client host doesn't have IP address yet?

Confused, please clarify.

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi

Firstly, the best way to learn the detail of things like this is fire up WireShark and take a look.

However.. to answer you directly:

A unicast is a packet that is destined to a single address, IP or MAC.

After a client does s DISCOVER, it gets an OFFER from the server.

The server (whether a local server or a relay agent) sends the response with a target IP address of the address it would assign to the client, and the clients L2 MAC address in the L2 header. Therefore it's a unicast, but one based on an assumption of the IP address. 

Typically a sending device would ARP for the MAC based on the IP address it wants to reach; in this scenario the cleint wouldn't respond to the ARP (it doesn't have the address, as you say) but the server 'knows better'.

Regards

Aaron

[vasanth_edw]

@Aaron.. thanks

[Aaron Harrison]

No problem.

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