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The TCP/IP Guide  9  TCP/IP Application Layer Protocols, Services and Applications (OSI Layers 5, 6 and 7)       9  TCP/IP Network Configuration and Management Protocols (BOOTP, DHCP, SNMP and RMON)            9  Host Configuration and TCP/IP Host Configuration Protocols (BOOTP and DHCP)

Host Configuration Concepts, Issues and Motivation 1 BOOTP Overview, History and Standards

Before a device on a TCP/IP network can effectively communicate, it needs to know its IP address. While a conventional network host can read this information from its internal disk, some devices have no storage, and so do not have this luxury. They need help from another device on the network to provide them with an IP address and other information and/or software they need to become active IP hosts. This problem of getting a new machine up and running is commonly called bootstrapping, and to provide this capability to IP hosts, the TCP/IP Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP) was created.

In this section I provide a fairly detailed look at the TCP/IP Bootstrap Protocol. I begin with an overview and history of the protocol and a look at the standards that define it. I then discuss the general client/server nature of BOOTP and how addressing is done in communication between the client and the server. I describe the operation of BOOTP step by step, and illustrate the format of BOOTP messages. I conclude with a description of BOOTP vendor extensions, which are used to allow the information sent in BOOTP messages to be customized, and a discussion of BOOTP relay agents, which allow the protocol to operate even when the BOOTP server and client are on different networks.

Host Configuration Concepts, Issues and Motivation 1 BOOTP Overview, History and Standards