ICMP echo reply late or spurious

[Andreas Heinlein]

Hello,

I have come across a strange error message in our logs. It says:
"...dhcpd: ICMP Echo reply for 1.2.3.4 late or spurious"

I did not find much with Google, and I don't understand it from looking
at the source code either. It happens with multiple adresses (about six
or seven different addresses in the last two weeks). I guess it has
something to do with pinging the leases before offering them to the
client.

I am using dhcpd 3.0.4 on Linux (Debian/etch), the clients are Ubuntu
7.04.

Any idea what's going on?

Thank you,
Andreas