"one-lease-per-client" option in ISC dhcpd dhcpd.conf file
 

In dhcpd.conf file there is an option to allow one client to have exactly one lease and expire old lease if dhcpd receives DHCPREQUEST:

If I add "one-lease-per-client true;" to my dhcpd.conf file and start dhclient for both eth0 and eth1 in the same machine, I still get network parameters for both interfaces. According to /var/lib/dhcp/db/dhcpd.leases file there are two leases for the same client.


How is the "client" determined? Looks like at least not by system hostname. In addition, why can I request multiple leases to different network adapters in my machine despite the fact that "one-lease-per-client true;" is enabled in dhcpd.conf?

The MAC address is what identifies a client.

If a machine has 2 network interfaces then it has 2 MAC addresses.

If MAC address identifies a client, I can't see the purpose of the "one-lease-per-client true;" option because MAC addresses are globally unique. I mean if I have a machine with two different network cards, then both of those are treated as different clients by dhcpd.

It exists because you can have multiple IP's against a single MAC and some admins way want to ensure that can't happen.

You must remember that this option came into existence way back when a machine with more than one ethernet port was extremely rare, expensive and probably the dhcp server itself.