[syslinux] Network Boot IP Configuration Dilemma

[Stephen Brown]

On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

> Stephen Brown wrote:
> > On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, Fred Feirtag wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>The thing is, if someone is running a rogue DHCP server on your network,
> >>>you'd have people's workstations hanging anyway.
> >>>
> >>
> >>Yes, though since my Linux server is often faster than the MS
> >>servers that may appear from time to time, the hanging on bootup
> >>can be rather intermittant.  And I guess the conclusion is, I see
> >>reducing the number of failure modes, and reducing the ways
> >>failures will be seen and reported by users as a priority, and you
> >>see uniformity of usage as a priority.
> >
> >
> > I'll interject here that we are seeing more Mac Powerbooks show up as
> > rogue DHCP servers -- seems that the default configuration is to set up
> > ad-hoc networks... Macs seem to listen to the other Macs rather than our
> > Cisco access points if they are available.  Really a weird one to
> > troubleshoot.  Off topic, I'll admit, but if you are looking for
> > solutions to rogue DHCP servers, it might be something to watch for.
>
> EEK.  Geez... that's just insane.  You can't even firewall them off
> since DHCP is inherently local -- I guess you can filter if your layer-2
> switches are sufficiently smart, but I can't imagine a more disruptive
> default configuration.

Yep -- seems it is usually wireless card to wireless card.  Even if all
the switches in the building were managed routers, this completely
bypasses the wires.

Steve Brown
sbrown7 at umbc.edu