Hi All,

This problem has been driving me mad now for a month.

The set up;

I have a Redhat 9 box running a dhcp server. This server is serving leases to two Win XP boxes and an AIX4/5 box.

The server has a 3Com 3c905 NIC, as does one of the XP boxes and the other XP box has an SIS LAN port integral to the motherboard. The AIX box has a standard IBM controller. All are set to 100 / Half Duplex. The server is a completely SCSI system and the problem persists with the standard 2.4.20-8 kernel and a 2.4.22 kernel that I have compiled.

There appear to be no IRQ conflicts, the server's NIC is not sharing an IRQ.

The problem;

On booting all systems everything will work properly, leases offered and claimed without problem. Suddenly things stop. The clients isuue a DHCPDISCOVER and the server responds with a DHCPOFFER but the client appears not to recieive the DHCPOFFER and sends another DHCPDISCOVER. This sequence is repeated numerous times without the client sending a DHCPREQUEST.

So has anybody experienced anything like this?

Regards,
Mike.
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Have you tried to manually request an IP with dhclient? If so, do you have positive results? Have you tried flushing the workstations firewall rules to eliminate that as the culprit?

Hi jcookeman, thanks for the reply.

Yes, Ive tried 'ipconfig /renew' from the XP workstations and flushing the firewall rules by stopping and starting the firwall (firestarter) but non of this makes a difference.

Incidentally, thinking about it, when the clients start ignoring the DHCPOFFER, all other network communication between client and server is lost, ie cannot ping each other, no route to the internet etc.

Also, on occasions over the last month, I've just 'done nothing' and eventually it's come back up. Very strange!

Regards,
Mike.