The DHCP Handbook: Understanding, Deploying, and Managing Automated Configuration Services

I can't think of anything that you cannot find in this book. Definitely recommended to programmers, administrator, and others who just want to gain an understanding of how the whole thinng works

I bought this because I'm a software developer and was hired to produce a web interface on top of DHCP running on Linux. This book clearly answered every question and allowed me to successfully configure the service's many options. It is consistently well written and sufficiently detailed for use by system administrators and developers like me. It is a must for your reference library and I highly recommend it.

If you have to design, configure, and manage a complex DHCP environment, this book is an outstanding resource. I've used the first edition (first printing ;-) for years, and am in the process of purchasing the second edition. In that time I've configured or set configuration standards for dozens of DHCP servers running the ISC DHCP server and dozens more managed by Lucent's VitalQIP DHCP service. I have not personally configured or managed a Microsoft DHCP server, but I've walked many consultants through setting up DHCP servers from Microsoft, Cisco, Linksys, etc.The value of this book is its depth. Protocols, design considerations, conditional leases, client identification, authentication, failover, client issues, OS considerations, Dynamic DNS integration, migration between static and dynamic environments, and just about everything else you'll run into are well covered. The authors are actively involved in the development of DHCP standards and the ISC DHCP reference implementation, so it's difficult to find a more authoritative source. If you can't find your answer in the book, the authors are active on the DHCP mailing lists (http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/sw/dhcp/dhcp-lists.php).The wealth of information can be intimidating at first, but if you're dealing with a non-trivial environment it's worth it.

This book will bring you up to speed very quickly if you're a beginner. If you already know about DHCP, this book makes a good reference manual. A lot of the content is repeated from one chapter to another, keeping you from having to flip back and forth to other chapters

This book provides an overview of the DHCP protocol itself, which is why I bought it. Byte-by-byte, the book explains the protocol and the client/server mechanism in play. But it also goes on to provide information about hte administration of networks using several different DHCP implementations. The more advanced information includes fitting a DHCP server into a complete network sever architecture--having your server interact with a DNS server, for instance.Unfortuantely, the book does _not_ cover the meaning of--and often, not even deep descriptions of--the underlying settings. It doesn't make efforts at suggesting useful settings, or explain the tradeoffs that each setting might make. That seems fair: if it did, the book's scope would be pulled in the direction of providing a TCP/IP tutorial, too. For that information, you'll need to buy separate protocol-specific references.