dhcp_modules(5) 					Standards, Environments, and Macros					   dhcp_modules(5)

NAME

       dhcp_modules - data storage modules for the DHCP service

DESCRIPTION

       This man page describes the characteristics of data storage modules (public modules) for use by the Solaris Dynamic Host Configuration Pro-
       tocol (DHCP) service.

       Public modules are the part of the DHCP service architecture that encapsulate the details of storing DHCP service data in  a  data  storage
       service. Examples of data storage services are NIS+, Oracle, and ufs file systems.

       Public  modules are dynamic objects which can be shipped separately from the Solaris DHCP service. Once installed, a public module is visi-
       ble to the DHCP service, and can be selected for use by the service through the DHCP service management interfaces  (dhcpmgr(1M),  dhcpcon-
       fig(1M), dhtadm(1M), and pntadm(1M)).

       Public modules may be provided by Sun Microsystems, Inc or by third parties.

       The  Solaris  DHCP service management architecture provides a mechanism for plugging in public module-specific administration functionality
       into the dhcpmgr(1M) and dhcpconfig(1M) utilities. This functionality is in the form of a Java Bean, which is provided by the public module
       vendor. This Java Bean collects public module-specific configuration from the user (you) and provides it to the Solaris DHCP service.

       The  Solaris  DHCP  service bundles three modules with the service, which are described below. There are three dhcpsvc.conf(4) DHCP service
       configuration parameters pertaining to public modules: RESOURCE, PATH, and RESOURCE_CONFIG. See dhcpsvc.conf(4) for more information  about
       these parameters.

   SUNWfiles
       This  module stores its data in ASCII files. Although the format is ASCII, hand-editing is discouraged. It is useful for DHCP service envi-
       ronments that support several hundred to a couple thousand of clients and lease times are a few hours or more.

       This module's data may be shared between DHCP servers through the use of NFS.

   SUNWbinfiles
       This module stores its data in binary files. It is useful for DHCP service environments with many networks and many thousands  of  clients.
       This module provides an order of magnitude increase in performance and capacity over SUNWfiles.

       This module's data cannot be shared between DHCP servers.

   SUNWnisplus
       This module stores its data within a NIS+ domain. It is useful in environments where NIS+ is already deployed and facilitates sharing among
       multiple DHCP servers. This module suports several hundred to a few thousand clients with lease times of several hours or more.

       The NIS+ service should be hosted on a machine with ample CPU power, memory, and disk space, as the load on NIS+ is significant when it	is
       used  to  store	DHCP data. Periodic checkpointing of the NIS+ service is necessary in order to roll the transaction logs and keep the NIS+
       service operating at its highest efficiency. See nisping(1M) and crontab(1) for more information.

SEE ALSO

       crontab(1), dhcpconfig(1M), dhcpmgr(1M), dhtadm(1M), nisping(1M), pntadm(1M), dhcpsvc.conf(4), dhcp(5)

       Solaris DHCP Service Developer's Guide

SunOS 5.10							    24 Jan 2003 						   dhcp_modules(5)