DHCP on-the-fly block assignment

Question

We have a large number of clients who connect to our DHCP machine. We want to assign some of them to a different IP block, which is routed with lower priority. Every DHCP lease renewal, we'd like to check a database and decide which IP block we'd like to assign a customer to.

Is there a way to have a DHCP server execute a script, look in a database, or execute some dynamic code when deciding which address to assign in which pool? Each client is uniquely identified by option82, aka "DHCP Relay Agent Information Option".

This sounds like a carrier-type setup... is that the case? I would be surprised if something like this already existed in the open tools. I would probably look at writing it myself. Very interesting question though! — MikeyB, Jul 14 '10 at 20:18
@Zypher: Debian OS, regular dhcpd @MikeyB: Yes, carrier setup — Andomar, Jul 14 '10 at 21:15

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 14 '10 at 21:50

So i havn't done this with option 82, but your best bet would be to use classing in isc dhcpd.

What you would do is setup a class like:

class "userclass1" { 
    match if substring(option agent.circuit-id, 2, 2) = "<your_id1>";
}
class "userclass2" { 
    match if substring(option agent.circuit-id, 2, 2) = "<your_id2>";
}

Then in your pool statement:

pool {
  allow members of "userclass1";
  range 10.0.0.11 10.0.0.50;
}
pool {
   allow members of "userclass2";
   range 10.0.0.51 10.0.0.100;
}

Reference: dhcpd.conf

This should at least get you on the right track, i don't have my play server up to test it, but i've done something similar with other options.

Wouldn't we have to reset dhcpd every time there is a change? Is it possible to have pool membership determined dynamically by a script call? — Andomar, Jul 15 '10 at 05:48
@Andomar: Yep you would. Unfortunately i don't think so - but i could be very wrong there — Zypher, Jul 15 '10 at 13:30

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 15 '10 at 07:46

Ideally, you'd modify dhcpd to support address assignment based on Option82, equivalent to the "hardware" lines in host objects. I've done it with the OpenBSD dhcpd when I worked at an ISP, which has a simpler internal structure to isc-dhcpd.

If you're not in a position to do that, then look at omapi(3) and omshell(1); you'd use OMAPI to dynamically create "class" and "pool" objects, to implement Zypher's suggestion. I just checked dhcpd.h and the class struct has an OMAPI_OBJECT_PREAMBLE, so this should be possible. Beware that the documentation on OMAPI can be a little ... skimpy.

The solution Zypher suggested is what we currently have. And I don't think the sysadmins would appreciate an edited version of dhcpd. But OMAPI seems like a good alternative, thanks! — Andomar, Jul 20 '10 at 22:31

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 15 '10 at 07:58

Maybe you can start from here:

http://blog.nominet.org.uk/tech/2005/12/21/using-omapi-object-management-application-programming-interface/

Never used, but with a bit of scripting I think it could work.

EDIT

man omshell(1) would give some other examples

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 14 '10 at 18:38

0

One way to do this is to assign those clients to a separate VLAN, then the DHCP address those clients get will automatically be in a different pool.

answered Jul 14 '10 at 18:38

Zak

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Actually, switching VLAN is what we'd like to avoid. VLAN switches confuse the client's modems and take a long time to execute – Andomar Jul 14 '10 at 21:19

DHCP on-the-fly block assignment

4 Answers4

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