dhcpd lease problems?

[David W. Hankins]

On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 11:11:22AM -0700, Alan DeKok wrote:
>    See dhcp_lease_free().  No leases are free'd.  Ever.  They're put 

I'm often guilty of talking about source trees you don't have access to.

In this particular case, I'm talking about code that doesn't even exist
(because I haven't written it yet), but is on our plate.

In the world where you have a dhcp daemon which is dynamically given
its dynamic pool ranges (eg via something resembling OMAPI, but not),
it is simply not a good idea to permit lease structures to remain around
forever.

>    Yes.  "if trying to create dynamic lease AND host exists, discard 
> dynamic lease.  If trying to create host AND dynamic lease exists, 
> discard dynamic lease.  If reading a lease from the leases file AND a 
> host exists, discard the lease".

Let me rephrase my objection.

If at some point, the complaint I hear from the user community is that
the server does not start up slow enough, then I will consider
encumbering the server startup logic.  As it stands, I hear the converse
fairly loudly.

>    What am I missing, then?

Vision (tm).  We don't really have the lemonade set out where anyone
can drink it either.

>    And if it can be done that way, it shoul dbe possible (somehow) to do 
> the same thing at run-time, when dhcpd is bootstrapping itself.

Interdependency is undesirable.  The stages of execution where it's
operated, and an environment where multiple operations may operate in
one order or another, are all corner cases that erode the system's
ability to run without flaws.

There is simply no compelling reason for this complexity, considering
that reserved dynamic lease are not only what's being asked for, but
are already completed.

-- 
David W. Hankins		"If you don't do it right the first time,
Software Engineer			you'll just have to do it again."
Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.		-- Jack T. Hankins