Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
6.2.2.1 Dynamic Configuration

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6.2.2.1 Dynamic Configuration

6.2.2.1 Dynamic Configuration

A number of protocol provisions have been made for dynamic configuration.

The suggested approach to dynamic configuration is to use the BOOTP protocol with the extensions defined in "BOOTP Vendor Information Extensions" RFC-1084 [BOOT:3]. RFC-1084 defines some important general (not vendor-specific) extensions. In particular, these extensions allow the address mask to be supplied in BOOTP; we RECOMMEND that the address mask be supplied in this manner.

DISCUSSION:

Historically, subnetting was defined long after IP, and so a separate mechanism (ICMP Address Mask messages) was designed to supply the address mask to a host. However, the IP address mask and the corresponding IP address conceptually form a pair, and for operational simplicity they ought to be defined at the same time and by the same mechanism, whether a configuration file or a dynamic mechanism like BOOTP.

Note that BOOTP is not sufficiently general to specify the configurations of all interfaces of a multihomed host. A multihomed host must either use BOOTP separately for each interface, or configure one interface using BOOTP to perform the loading, and perform the complete initialization from a file later.

Application layer configuration information is expected to be obtained from files after loading of the system code.


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Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
6.2.2.1 Dynamic Configuration