DHCP code in 2.0.4+

[Alexander Clouter]

Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 2009-06-07 at 09:50 +0200, Alan DeKok wrote:
>> Martin Lorentz wrote:
>> > While playing around with the experimental DHCP code in the latest
>> > freeradius releases
> 
> Sorry, I missed this. Why do people see a need for a DHCP server in
> freeradius? Or can someone point me to the existing discussion?
> 
I thought exactly the same when I first heard this.  Looking out there, 
you do not get really any options for a DHCP server with LDAP support 
(which is what I look for).

I have been using DHCP with a LDAP patch that is getting harder and 
harder to maintain.  FreeRADIUS can pretty much do the same, I get to 
keep my LDAP policy schema stuff (and write a unlang glue to use it) and 
you get proper DHCP load-balancing/failover.

The ISC DHCP load-balancing works, but it seems for the failover they 
took a leaf from MySQL's/Novell's book-of-cluster'ing.  In this 
particular text all nodes of the cluster function identically...to the 
point where even when one dies *all* of them effectively goes down with 
the ship :-/ MySQL adds the extra 'functionality' of toasting your data 
for being a lazy sysadmin and not choosing to use PostgreSQL.

So, it's not so much *why* DHCP in a RADIUS server, it's that it looks 
like the functionality was easy to add (like VMPS) and what other 
options other than ISC DHCP have you got?

Although I'm yet to use it, it seems that it cannot be worse than ISC 
DHCP, and for me it's got a long term shelf life compared to the LDAP 
patch I'm maintaining.

Cheers

-- 
Alexander Clouter
.sigmonster says: But Captain -- the engines can't take this much longer!