Dodgy DHCP

[Xenon]

I have got a DHCP server running on my SUSE 9.3 box and it works fine, for a while. When any clients try to connect later they can't get an IP. Each time I am required to ssh into the server and restart it using
/etc/init.d/dhcp restart
..and each time it says shutting down and starting up and I have done status checks and it always says it is running. What is the problem? Also, where is the DHCP config file as it should be possible to allocate a computer the same IP based on its MAC address, i.e. beyond the lease time of other clients.

[Xenon]

I have found how to set-up computers' IPs based on their MAC address and I have it broadcasting DNS settings and the IP of an NTP server but every hour or so it stops and my brother complains as his XBOX Live cuts off. The only way to prevent this is to restart it before it cuts off to keep it going.

[nomar]

First step is to check your logs.

You may find what you want in /var/log/daemon.log

How did you check to see if the process is still running...

try:

# ps ax | grep dhcp

to see if it's still up. You can also see if the process is listening on a port like this:

# netstat -tap

You should see the dhcp server listening on port 68.

[Mystic_Slayer]

If you have dhcp on External(receives one from ISP) and you use DHCP server on internal network it gives you a very hard time...

[nomar]

If you have dhcp on External(receives one from ISP) and you use DHCP server on internal network it gives you a very hard time...

That makes no sense at all!?!?

[Xenon]

I would agree that it also makes no sense. Right, I do think I know what is the problem. It was of my own cause but I was playing with file permissions which might have affected the ability for it to either read, write of execute as required. I have checked in /var/log/messages and it looks about right. Many thanks for the help.