DHCPd Chatter Box!

Recently I was recovering from a major network failure after a prolonged power outage.  After reviving my lifeless and crippled network, there was no successful DHCP offers.  I noticed in my logs (/var/log/messages) the DHCP server was going crazy!

Unable to solve the issue, no systems getting an IP address despite the many many DHCPOFFERS, I caved, and built a new DHCP server as the weekend was ending and I just had to make this work.  An hour passes and the new dhcpd server is on its feet and machines are getting address.  However this new server is generating the same log hyperactivity.  But its working.  So I left it at that.

Here is a snippet from the /var/log/messages.  (MAC Addresses and hostnames have been changed for security reasons).


Oct 31 08:17:43 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.31 (192.168.1.11) from d4:20:6d:7e:4c:e0 (Android_) via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:43 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.31 to d4:20:6d:e2:8b:e0 (Android_) via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:44 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:24:36:ae:23:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:45 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.111.175 to 00:24:36:ee:74:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:46 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.175 (192.168.1.11) from 00:67:36:ae:74:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:46 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.175 to 00:24:65:ae:74:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:28 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.107 from 00:1a:ee:d5:85:ed (changedname) via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:28 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.107 to 00:3d:e9:d5:85:ed (changedname) via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:57 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.200 from 00:21:70:ee:3f:81 via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:57 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.200 to 00:21:ae:46:7f:81 via eth0
...

Fast forward a few hours, now Monday morning and people arriving and I have a pocket of my network down.  Not getting DHCP offers.  The "pocket of systems" gave me an indication as to what may be happening...   So I tried something as a last resort, and something that I should have tried first thing in retrospect.

I rebooted my network switches.  It seems the power issues caused one or more to go unstable.  The log settled right down, and dhcp requests and offers were all perfect.  So what solved this issue was to reboot my switches!