NAME

       dhcp-helper - A DHCP/BOOTP relay agent.

SYNOPSIS

       dhcp-helper [OPTION]...

DESCRIPTION

       dhcp-helper  is  a  DHCP  and  BOOTP  relay  agent.  It listens for DHCP and BOOTP broadcasts on directly
       connected subnets and relays them to DHCP or BOOTP servers elsewhere. It also  relays  replies  from  the
       remote  servers  back to partially configured hosts. Once hosts are fully configured they can communicate
       directly with their servers and no longer need the services of a relay.

OPTIONS

       The only required option is at least one DHCP server to relay to. The simplest  way  to  configure  dhcp-
       helper  on  a  router  is  just to give the interface to the network containing the DHCP server with a -b
       option. All the other interfaces present on the machine will then accept  DHCP  requests.  On  a  machine
       which does not have an interface on the network containing the DHCP server, use a -s option instead.

       -s <server>
              Specify  a  DHCP or BOOTP server to relay to. The server may be given as a machine name or dotted-
              quad IP address. More than one server may be specified.

       -b <interface>
              Relay to a DHCP or BOOTP server using broadcast via <interface>. This eliminates the need to  give
              a  server  address.  <interface>  is  automatically added to the list of interfaces which will not
              receive DHCP requests.

       -i <interface>
              Specify which local interfaces to listen on for DHCP/BOOTP broadcasts. If no -i  flags  are  given
              all interfaces are used except those specified by -e flags and those specified by -b flags.

       -e <interface>
              Specify which local interfaces to exclude.

       -p     Use alternative ports (1067/1068) for the DHCP client and server.

       -v     Report the software release version and copyright information.

       -d     Debug mode, do not change UID, write a pid-file or go into the background.

       -r <file>
              Specify  an  alternate  path  for dhcp-helper to record its process-id in. Normally /var/run/dhcp-
              helper.pid.

       -u <username>
              Specify the userid to which dhcp-helper will change after startup. The  daemon  must  normally  be
              started  as  root, but it will drop root priviledges after startup by changing id to another user.
              Normally this user is "nobody" but that can be over-ridden with this switch.

NOTES

       Dhcp-helper requires a 2.2 or  later  Linux  kernel.  The  "Linux  packet  filter"  and  "packet  socket"
       facilities  are  not  required,  which  is  the  chief advantage of this software over the ISC DHCP relay
       daemon.

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by Simon Kelley <simon@thekelleys.org.uk>.

                                                                                                  DHCP-HELPER(8)