dhclient: lease renewal woes

[Mr Dash Four]

>> Nope. The cable modem sits directly between the outside world and my 
>> firewall, which shields/protects my entire set of private networks 
>> (all Linux based, with the odd exception of Windows 7 and Windows 
>> XP). In essence, this is my exit point where all external traffic is 
>> redirected.
>
> I think what Glenn was getting at was "what happens if you use a 
> Windows client" ?
> Ie, if you unplug your current equipment and plug in a Windows machine 
> - what happens ? Does it get the same settings ? Does it have the same 
> problem ?
I dare not try because I will (potentially) be exposing a Windows 
machine to the outside world. That, I think, isn't such a good idea. I 
am more comfortable having Linux in between so that I can see what is 
going on.

> If a Windows client behaves differently, then an obvious place to look 
> is the contents of the packets to see how the data exchanged differs. 
> If Windows is also affected, then you might have better luck with your 
> provider who may be taking an attitude of "only support Windows, fob 
> off the Linux using wierdo" which is sadly an all to common attitude.
I should also point out that I have been with this provider for a long 
time and did not have any problems - Linux/Windows related (apart from 
them being a bit lazy/unresponsive, that is). The "old" firewall 
machine, which is now history, used (a very old version of) dhcpcd to do 
what I am now doing with dhclient. I can't say whether these problems 
existed before (i.e. problems renewing, but rebinding goes OK) simply 
because the whole system was very limited in every way.