Should "dhclient -1" call dhclient-script FAIL on failure

Thomas Markwalder tmark at isc.org
Thu Jun 22 17:52:27 UTC 2017


Hello ISC DHCP users:

We are looking for some feedback on a rather old issue:

The issue:

    'When "dhclient -1" fails to get an address, it does not call
dhclient-script FAIL as it does without -1.'

For quite some time packagers have been including a patch to dhclient
such that it does invoke the script on failure, regardless of the
one-try flag.

We have a few directions to go with this:

1. Include the patch in our next maintenance release -  This would alter
the default behavior but runs the risk of surprising people.

2. Include the patch in our next maintenance but wrapped in conditional
compilation that is disabled by default. Thus preserving the default
behavior but still making the patch available.

3. Do nothing.  Leave the burden of checking dhclient's exit status to
it's caller or to packagers to continue patching it.

4. Do #2 now, and then for the next feature release reverse it so that
it is compiled IN by default.

5. Do #2 now, and then for the next feature release, change it to
command-line option that enables/disables it.  Probably enabled by default.

6. Other

Your timely feedback would be most welcome.  Thank you for your
continued interest in our software.

Regards,

Thomas Markwalder,

ISC Software Engineering




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