Very Computer

I am running RedHat 5.1 with 2.0.36 kernel for a small home network.
The machine is a dhcp server in addition to lots of other stuff (router,
firewall, samba and netatalk server, print server, mail, web, etc.).

The dhcp server is from the RPM dhcp-2_0b1pl1-2_i386.rpm.  The server
serves IP addresses fine at the moment, but the leases file is always
empty, even well after the maximum lease time defined.  This is causing
problems because DNS for the internal network relies on the leases file
for its mappings.

Some more history.  I have my dhcpd.conf file set up with some fixed
addresses based on the host name, and the majority of the available
address range (192.168.0.32 through 254) available for dynamic
assignment (rare in our case).  The dhcpd.conf file entry for each known
host looked like:

        host tory {
                fixed-address 192.168.0.21;
        }          

This all worked fine and the expected IP addresses were handed out to
the correct hosts.  dhcpd was maintaining the leases file appropriately
(appending to the end and occasionally rewriting), as expected.

A few weeks ago something changed.  dhcpd started handing out IP
addresses in the dynamic range to known host names: 192.168.0.32 for
example, to a known host that should have gotten 192.168.0.23.  The
leases file started containing *only* these new, and incorrect, leases,
and forgot entirely about the older leases that matched the "host"
blocks in the dhcpd.conf file.

I restarted dhcpd multiple times, I searched for errors in the
dhcpd.conf file and any hints in any of the log files under /var/log, I
searched through documentation and queried Deja News and the web, and
nobody else seems to have this problem.  Lucky me, I get to blaze a new
trail :-) !!

Since then I tried emptying the leases file and restarting dhcpd in an
effort to have dhcpd write out the renewed leases as it got them, and
that didn't help (the leases file remains empty).  I have rebooted, no
change.  I downloaded, compiled, and successfully installed
dhcp-2.0b1pl27, and there is no change (although the lease file location
has changed).  Still an empty lease file!  All the while the clients are
getting all the correct addresses for their IP and the various other
network hosts required.

Are there any hints at all on what might be the problem here?

                -Mike Klein

I have one clarification to make:

...

Quote:>A few weeks ago something changed.  dhcpd started handing out IP
>addresses in the dynamic range to known host names: 192.168.0.32 for
>example, to a known host that should have gotten 192.168.0.23.

I fixed the above IP address problem by adding the "hardware ethernet"
statement into each host block, on the assumption that maybe the host
name wasn't being matched correctly for some reason.  That fixed the IP
address problem, and now all clients are getting the fixed IP addresses
they should be.  Each host block now looks like:

        host tory {
                hardware ethernet XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX;      # fake
                fixed-address 192.168.0.21;
        }

So the correct IP addresses are now consistently handed out correctly
again, but still the leases file remains empty.

                -Mike

I seem to have the exact same problem here. I too have some fixed addresses
and all other hosts are given dynamic adresses in the range 192.168.0.10 to
192.168.0.200

Hope someone knows how to solve this one...

---