[NTLUG:Discuss] dhclient problems

[kbrannen@gte.net]

Eric Schnoebelen wrote:
> kbrannen at gte.net writes:
> - The strange part is that when I use dhcpcd with Suse, it just
> - works out of the box; I don't do anything.  So I know you can
> - can play nicely with MS's dhcp server...sigh...
> 
> 	What flags is dhcpcd using when run by SUSE?  I think
> we'll need that information to be able to make dhclient suitably
> mimic dhcpcd.  Alternatively, install dhcpcd on the system in
> question (after all, you believe that works.. :)

I did install dhcpcd on the RH9.0 system, and lo and behold, life is wonderful 
just like on the Suse system.

But for those following the saga, yet new info has been revealed (it's amazing 
what smacking your head on the wall long enough can do. :-)  By reading thru 
/sbin/ifup I noticed it using a var ${DHCP_HOSTNAME}, but it was never set 
anywhere.  More reading showed it doing ". /etc/sysconfig/network".  Somehow, 
it had never hit home to me that those files were bits of shell script.  I'd 
always seen things like "VAR=value", so I just [wrongly] assumed they were 
simple config files.  <sigh>

So I just added the line:
DHCP_HOSTNAME=$HOSTNAME
at the bottom of the /etc/sysconfig/network file, as HOSTNAME was defined 
above, restarted the network service, and SHA-ZAM!  Live was good as "host 
my_computer_name" actually worked. :-)  I can't imagine why RH doesn't do that 
automatically, but that is the fix to make dhclient give the hostname so 
forward lookups work.

Thanks to everyone who contributed suggestions!

HTH others,
Kevin