DHCP Relay

If you want your router to forward DHCP requests to an external DHCP server you can configure the system to act as a DHCP relay agent. The DHCP relay agent works with IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

All interfaces used for the DHCP relay must be configured. This includes the uplink to the DHCP server.

IPv4 relay

Configuration

set service dhcp-relay interface <interface>

Interfaces that participate in the DHCP relay process. If this command is used, at least two entries of it are required: one for the interface that captures the dhcp-requests, and one for the interface to forward such requests. A warning message will be shown if this command is used, since new implementations should use listen-interface and upstream-interface.

set service dhcp-relay listen-interface <interface>

Interface for DHCP Relay Agent to listen for requests.

set service dhcp-relay upstream-interface <interface>

Interface for DHCP Relay Agent to forward requests out.

set service dhcp-relay server <server>

Configure IP address of the DHCP <server> which will handle the relayed packets.

set service dhcp-relay relay-options relay-agents-packets discard

The router should discard DHCP packages already containing relay agent information to ensure that only requests from DHCP clients are forwarded.

set service dhcp-relay disable

Disable dhcp-relay service.

Options

set service dhcp-relay relay-options hop-count <count>

Set the maximum hop <count> before packets are discarded. Range 0…255, default 10.

set service dhcp-relay relay-options max-size <size>

Set maximum <size> of DHCP packets including relay agent information. If a DHCP packet size surpasses this value it will be forwarded without appending relay agent information. Range 64…1400, default 576.

set service dhcp-relay relay-options relay-agents-packets <append | discard | forward | replace>

Four policies for reforwarding DHCP packets exist:

  • append: The relay agent is allowed to append its own relay information to a received DHCP packet, disregarding relay information already present in the packet.

  • discard: Received packets which already contain relay information will be discarded.

  • forward: All packets are forwarded, relay information already present will be ignored.

  • replace: Relay information already present in a packet is stripped and replaced with the router’s own relay information set.

Example

  • Listen for DHCP requests on interface eth1.

  • DHCP server is located at IPv4 address 10.0.1.4 on eth2.

  • Router receives DHCP client requests on eth1 and relays them to the server at 10.0.1.4 on eth2.

DHCP relay example

DHCP relay example

The generated configuration will look like:

show service dhcp-relay
    listen-interface eth1
    upstrem-interface eth2
    server 10.0.1.4
    relay-options {
       relay-agents-packets discard
    }

Also, for backwards compatibility this configuration, which uses generic interface definition, is still valid:

show service dhcp-relay
    interface eth1
    interface eth2
    server 10.0.1.4
    relay-options {
       relay-agents-packets discard
    }

Operation

restart dhcp relay-agent

Restart DHCP relay service

IPv6 relay

Configuration

set service dhcpv6-relay listen-interface <interface>

Set eth1 to be the listening interface for the DHCPv6 relay.

Multiple interfaces may be specified.

set service dhcpv6-relay upstream-interface <interface> address <server>

Specifies an upstream network <interface> from which replies from <server> and other relay agents will be accepted.

set service dhcpv6-relay disable

Disable dhcpv6-relay service.

Options

set service dhcpv6-relay max-hop-count <count>

Set maximum hop count before packets are discarded, default: 10

set service dhcpv6-relay use-interface-id-option

If this is set the relay agent will insert the interface ID. This option is set automatically if more than one listening interfaces are in use.

Example

  • DHCPv6 requests are received by the router on listening interface eth1

  • Requests are forwarded through eth2 as the upstream interface

  • External DHCPv6 server is at 2001:db8::4

DHCPv6 relay example

DHCPv6 relay example

The generated configuration will look like:

commit
show service dhcpv6-relay
    listen-interface eth1 {
    }
    upstream-interface eth2 {
       address 2001:db8::4
    }

Operation

restart dhcpv6 relay-agent

Restart DHCPv6 relay agent immediately.