option broadcast-address necessary?

[Matt Zagrabelny]

Greetings,

I am wondering if the dhcp daemon will give out the proper broadcast
address if one is not specified.

I didn't see in the documentation (man 5 dhcp-options) that "option
broadcast-address" is "optional":

       option broadcast-address ip-address;

        This option specifies the broadcast address in use on the
client's subnet.  Legal values for broadcast addresses are specified
in section 3.2.1.3 of STD 3 (RFC1122).

I did see that the subnet-mask is "optional". That is, dhcpd will use
the netmask of the subnet declaration:

     option subnet-mask ip-address;

         The subnet mask option specifies the client's subnet mask as
per RFC 950.  If no subnet mask option is provided anywhere in scope,
as a last resort dhcpd will use the sub‐
         net mask from the subnet declaration for the network on which
an address is being assigned.  However, any subnet-mask option
declaration that is in scope for  the  address
         being assigned will override the subnet mask specified in the
subnet declaration.

I could do some empirical tests (regarding the omission of the
broadcast-address), but was hoping for authoritative information about
the code of the daemon.

Any info is appreciated!

Thanks,

-matt zagrabelny