CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_



Reported by Ralph Droms/Bucknell

DHC Minutes

The discussion at this meeting was driven by three primary agenda items:


   o BOOTP forwarding agent document -- Walt Wimer
   o Dynamic IP assignment protocol -- Jesse Walker
   o DHCP Internet Draft -- Ralph Droms


There was also discussion of future work.

Walt Wimer prepared a detailed description of the BOOTP forwarding agent
(which is only hinted at in the BOOTP RFCs) for use in the Router
Requirements RFC and in the DHCP RFC. The Working Group decided the
appropriate course of action would be to publish Walt's document as a
separate RFC updating the original BOOTP RFCs [RFC-951, RFC-1084], with
a reference from the Router Requirements RFC to this new RFC. The
Working Group also discussed some changes and filled in some details in
the new RFC. Walt is working on incorporating the Working Group's
suggestions and some other clarifications to the original BOOTP RFCs to
prepare his document for publication as an Internet Draft.  A draft
version of the revised BOOTP forwarding agent document is available for
anonymous FTP from host sol.bucknell.edu in file dhcwg/bootp-forwarding.

Next, the Working Group discussed Jesse Walker's description of the
dynamic IP address allocation and configuration parameter transmission
algorithm.  The Working Group was in general agreement with the
description of the client-server protocol.  There was a spirited
discussion for and against the use of multiple DHCP exchanges for the
transmission of configuration parameters, e.g., in the case where there
are more parameters than could be transmitted in a single DHCP packet.
This discussion interacted with an earlier discussion about negotiation
for transmission of parameters:  a client may need to request certain,
specific parameters while a server may need to send parameters that were
not requested but should have non-default values in the client.  The
``Tastes Great'' contingent felt that restricting the client to a single
DHCP request was too restricting, while the ``Less Filling'' contingent
argued for simplicity and pointed to extension mechanisms (reusing
fields in the BOOTP protocol specification, using TFTP to download
larger configuration files) that could be used in those cases where the
parameters could not all fit in a single DHCP packet.  The Working Group
concluded that it ws likely that whoever wrote the protocol

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specification would likely get to decide the issue.

Two documents will be put up for consideration as Internet Drafts before
the next meeting of the Working Group:  Walt's BOOTP relaying agent
document, and a description of the client-server component of DHCP,
based on Jesse's contribution.  At the next meeting, we will take up the
server-server DHCP protocol.  We must also begin discussion of an SNMP
interface to DHCP; anyone anxious to write a MIB definition for DHCP?

There is a mailing list for this Working Group at
host-conf@sol.bucknell.edu (administrivia to host-conf-request).  An
archive of the mailing list and other documents of interest are
available for anonymous FTP from sol.bucknell.edu under directory dhcwg.
Attendees

Steve Alexander          stevea@i88.isc.com
Karl Auerbach            karl@eng.sun.com
Richard Basch            probe@mit.edu
Lida Carrier             lida@apple.com
Karen Frisa              karen.frisa@andrew.cmu.edu
Robert Gilligan          gilligan@sun.com
Tom Grant                grant@xylogics.com
Ajay Kachrani            kachrani@regent.enet.dec.com
Tom Kessler              kessler@sun.com
Jim Kinder               jdk@fibercom.com
Darren Kinley            kinley@crim.ca
Joshua Littlefield       josh@cayman.com
Gary Malkin              gmalkin@ftp.com
Bill Manning             bmanning@houston.sc.ti.com
Leo McLaughlin           ljm@ftp.com
Linda Melvin             infopath@well.sf.ca.us
Greg Minshall            minshall@wc.novell.com
Robert Morgan            morgan@jessica.stanford.edu
Brad Parker              brad@cayman.com
Michael Patton           map@lcs.mit.edu
Jonathan Saperia         saperia@decwrl.enet.dec.com
Tim Seaver               tas@mcnc.org
Paul Selkirk             paul@ftp.com
Glenn Trewitt            trewitt@pa.dec.com
Mike Turico              mturico@mot.com
John Veizades            veizades@apple.com
Kathleen Wilde           wilde@decvax.dec.com
Walter Wimer             walter.wimer@andrew.cmu.edu
John Wobus               jmwobus@suvm.acs.syr.edu
Wing Fai Wong            wfwong@malta.sbi.com



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