[ale] dhclient

[Joseph A. Knapka]

"Michael H. Warfield" wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 at 05:33:39PM -0500, Chris Fowler wrote:
> > I can try that.  This is for a Thin Client.  Small is better.  I'll test
> > dhclient and see if it works.  But here is how I'm doing it:
> 
> > ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.254 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255
> > /bin/dhclient
> 
> > It works fine
> 
>         Should not be necessary.  I've never had to do that with either
> pump or dhcpcd.  I don't know of any reason why dhcpclient would
> require it.

The dhclient man page says that when invoked without
arguments, it enumerates the available network devices,
throws away the non-broadcast ones, and attempts to
configure the rest.

It seems that for some reason, dhclient cannot determine that
eth0 is a broadcast interface unless it has been ifconfig'd.
Possibly it cannot see the device at all until it's configured.
One might suspect that support for this device is modular,
and the ifconfig command is causing the module to be loaded,
thus allowing dhclient to see the device.

-- Joe Knapka
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