Frequently Asked Questions

• Q: Which DHCP clients does ipLease DHCP server support?
• A: The server should work well with all DHCPv4 clients that comply with the protocol. "v4" is the 32-bit IP address protocol commonly available. IP v6 and DHCPv6 are in the standards pipeline.

• Q: Do you have a Unix version?
• A: No. (But we're tempted to ask, which Unix?)

• Q: Where can I get ipLease's source code?
• A: Nowhere. It's a copyrighted, commercial software product.

• Q: Is this a port from Unix?
• A: No. In fact, it's not even written in the C language. We used Pascal and wrote it from the Internet specifications (RFC's) from scratch.

• Q: I read that you do not require an external data base. How do you track and report the leases?
• A: We use a very simple and ancient technique for the leases data base: just several files with pointers for lease entries and options to places within others in the "data base". It saves customers the expense (both acquisition and administrative) of commercial data base products. Our technique is so ancient (but fast), that the pointers to other entries are in Roman numerals. [Grin!] We report lease status information with the SnapReport feature in DHCP Server. DHCP Maint's graphical user interface (GUI) will display the status of each lease in a spiffy format, which is also available as a feature of the running ipLease DHCP Server in versions 1.2x and later.

• Q: Do you offer an evaluation version of ipLease?
• A: Yes. Please see our page discussing the free evaluation program.

• Q: Can I display and update lease details from the server's control screen?
• A: Yes. This feature was introduced in version 1.2x. ( Resulting from feedback from many customers. )

• Q: Would you kindly add HostName to the log? To the lease dispaly utilities?
• A: OK. We included this feature in V1.2x. We thank all of our customers who suggested this improvement.

• Q: Why don't you use Windows Setup for installation?
• A: We use a manual installation from the Command Prompt for several reasons.

  Besides having seen many Setups fail to install all sorts of software, and then leave the human with no clue as to the state of the installation or how to go about fixing it, there are several other considerations.

  We tested the Setup style installation in the lab, and we found that it added a small bit of glitz to an otherwise drab procedure. But using Setup required more human time to install the ipLease product than our "manual" install instructions. Also, Setup more than doubled the size of the distribution files and saved only two steps in the instructions.

• Q: When should I consider using a dedicated machine for the DHCP server?
• A: On PC desktop systems, when the expected inter-arrival time of requests from clients approaches one second (from higher values). This is unlikely on small to mid-size networks. Here's how to compute the expected inter-arrival time under steady state conditions.
  • Let Ti = the expected inter-arrival time in seconds
  • Let La = the number of active dynamic leases
  • Let Td = the duration of each of the leases in seconds

  Then Ti = Td / (2 * La)

  For example, 1000 active leases with a lease duration of 10 hours (36000 seconds) each, equates to an expected inter-arrival time of 18 seconds.

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