How DHCP Works
A detailed discussion of how DHCP works is beyond the scope of this book, but here is a basic rundown of what happens.
In FreeBSD, there is a client program called dhclient that allows FreeBSD to act as a DHCP client. When a system configured to use DHCP boots and dhclient starts, it will send out broadcast requests on port 68. These requests are sent in UDP format.
If there is a DHCP server on the network, it will be listening to port 68 for these requests. When it receives a request for configuration information, it will check its database for a free IP address that can be assigned to the client. It will then send back all of the configuration information that the client requests on port 67, once again using UDP. The IP address ...
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