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From: Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: I never thought of this scenario
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2024 20:20:43 +0200
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On 20.04.2024 um 18:07 Uhr Rich wrote:

> Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> > Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes: =20
> >> And, the protocol "must" be routable:
> >>
> >> RFC2131: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2131 - page 6:
> >>
> >>         DHCP should not require a server on each subnet.  To allow
> >> for scale and economy, DHCP must work across routers or through the
> >>         intervention of BOOTP relay agents.
> >>
> >> Note they use "must" above in the statement "DHCP must work across
> >> routers".  Page 4 defines "must" as:
> >>
> >>         o "MUST"
> >>        =20
> >>         This word or the adjective "REQUIRED" means that the item
> >> is an absolute requirement of this specification. =20
> >=20
> > You missed a bit:
> >=20
> >    Throughout this document, the words that are used to define the
> >    significance of particular requirements are capitalized.  These
> > words ^^^^^^^^^^^
> >    are:
> >=20
> >=20
> > The =E2=80=98must=E2=80=99 in the design goals is not capitalized. =20
>=20
> Indeed, I did miss that.

Does that change the meaning?

> >> Therefore the RFC explicitly allows for DHCP to be routed. =20
> >=20
> > A protocol is not its design goals. You can=E2=80=99t conclude that a
> > protocol actually achieves a goal just by looking at the what the
> > goals were. A good recent example would be SIKE, which totally
> > failed to meet its design goals. =20
>=20
> Fair enough, however, given:
>=20
> 1) no explicit statement requiring non-routability in the RFC (if the=20
> designers had wanted it to be "non-routable" as Lawrence continues to=20
> asssert, they would have said so);

I don't know how that should work because a DHCP machine doesn't know
anything. ICMP address configuration exists (now deprecated) and Router
advertisements for IPv4 are specified too.
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6918
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1256
But I don't know any implementation for that.

That means an DHCPv4 host doesn't know anything and can only use a "all
machines" address. Such addresses can't be reasonably used to contact
really all machines in the world.
The packet must also go back to the DHCP client and sending it to
everybody in the internet isn't reasonable too.
The solution is to stay on the same link or use Unicast for
transporting that through routers.

> 2) an explicit statement in the design goals of "working across=20
> routers"
>=20
> it therefore becomes reasonable to presume that "routability" was=20
> at a minimum, not excluded, and was likely intended.

True, but I doubt there would be a solution for that. Even DHCPv6 needs
a relay agent. DHCPv6 over multicast is only for communication between
DHCPv6 servers.

> > I don=E2=80=99t personally care how DHCP gets across routers but from a
> > quick skim it looks like it relies some kind of relay agent. Table
> > 1 or section 3.1 might be reasonable references. =20
>=20
> It relies on a BOOTP Relay agent only for the initial, unconfigured,
> no IP address state, of the client.  Once the client has an IP, other
> DHCP protocol interactions happen using the client IP, and no BOOTP
> Relay agents are involved.
>=20
> DHCP is also not a "transport layer" protocol.  Instead, it uses UDP=20
> for its transport layer (see RFC url above, page 22):
>=20
>     "DHCP uses UDP as its transport protocol."
>=20
> Since UDP is itself routable, DHCP is also routable, because DHCP is=20
> simply a protocol definition for sending particular "messages" inside=20
> of UDP packets.

That depends on the addresses being used. When being used on
non-directed broadcast, link-local unicast or link-local multicast, UDP
can't be routed because the IP layer forbids routing of those packages.

--=20
kind regards
Marco

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