Introduction to DHCP

The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) provides a framework to assign configuration information to network devices. It uses the client/server model.

A typical DHCP application, as shown in Figure 6, includes a DHCP server and multiple clients (PCs and laptops).

	NOTE: A DHCP client can obtain an IP address and other configuration parameters from a DHCP server on another subnet via a DHCP relay agent. For more information about the DHCP relay agent, see the chapter "DHCP relay agent configuration."