Wrong server IP being sent in DHCP offer

Garybtx · 11-14-2006, 12:38 AM

I have two Windows XP machines getting their IP addresses from a Debian box, running DHCP3 - all the latest upgrades everywhere! The Debian box is also running BIND9. Everything seems to work very well - the DNS is updated, IP addresses are assigned, etc

BUT the IP address information being given by the DHCP server has the wrong server address. Instead of 10.64.0.10 it is sending 127.0.0.1 - I trapped this with tethereal - each time a new DISCOVER event occurs, the DHCP server replies as 127.0.0.1 -> 10.64.0.X - so now the Windows box thinks it got the IP address from itself?

Now where does the DHCP server get its address from?? I know it's a simple setting somewhere... The interfaces, hosts and dhcpd.conf files all seem right.

billymayday · 11-14-2006, 01:57 AM

Nothing jumps to mind. Can you post dhcpd.conf?

Garybtx · 11-14-2006, 11:29 PM

Thanks for getting back to me - after much forum searching and fiddling, I found it just now. In dhcpd.conf, the 'server-identifier' was set to be the host name, not the IP address. I guess this was resolving to be 127.0.0.1 when it was sent with the DHCPOFFER. So I changed it to be the IP address of the server and now everything's as it should be.

On to the next challenge...