[Kea-users] how to configure kea to *not* shut down on a link dropping?

[rpjday at crashcourse.ca]

   new to kea, dealing with the following. long story short,
kea server with up to 16 connected devices all powered by
ethernet, so when the base unit running kea comes up, the
"satellite" units come up, download firmware, reprogram
themselves, at which point they reset themselves to come
up running the just-downloaded firmware, and therein lies
the problem.

   as soon as a single satellite resets itself, it drops the
link on that line, which causes kea to simply shut down. even
if there are 16 attached satellites, the loss of a single link
causes that, so you can imagine the bouncing up and down of
the unfortunate kea server as each of the 16 units downloads
its firmware, then resets itself, killing the server.

   obviously, once kea is down, it can't possibly monitor the
state of the links. someone who claims to have a solution
suggests that a "port state machine will start the KEA
server" and that some other H/W signal will "be sent to port
state machine to register to KEA hooks."

   i'm at a loss as to what this means, so the simpler
question is, is there an obvious resolution to this? in short,
how can one tweak kea to not shut down on simply losing a link?

rday