[CentOS] DHCP without network access

[Jim Perrin]

On 1/17/06, Maciej Żenczykowski <maze at cela.pl> wrote:
> Actually the DHCP client on the box was setup during installation (pretty
> much the default there).  As for the server, that was done by installing
> and enabling the server (via "yum install dhcpd" and "chkconfig ... dhcpd
> on" and "/etc/init.d/dhcpd restart") with a hand edited /etc/dhcpd.conf
> configuration file.
>
> Basically the problem was that I unloaded the kernel module responsible
> for the network interface on the DHCP server and then loaded a different
> once and forgot to restart applicable services (DHCP) that bind direct to
> devices - thus leading to no DHCP on the reloaded network interface for a
> little over quarter of a day (until I restarted the DHCP server).
> Obviously the server issue was an oops on my part, but the question is why
> doesn't the client recover gracefully....


It does if you have a 'retry' value assigned in /etc/dhclient.conf,
however this file doesn't exist by default. I'm not sure what it does
without this file, but I'd gather from your experience, it's nothing
good.

--
Jim Perrin
System Architect - UIT
Ft Gordon & US Army Signal Center