I have a number of favorite RFC’s. Management of IP addresses by peg-dhcp is a testimony to solving a problem the simplest possible way

Some Background

It wasn’t so long ago that DHCP didn’t work so well for all operating systems. Prior to 2000, MS Windows kind of worked, but most other operating systems were a bit patchy.It was a huge problem at the time.

At large conferences, the problems of allocating IP addresses to people with portable computers was enormous. So they developed RFC2322 – Management of IP Addresses using Pegs.

From RFC2322

So a way of centrally administrating IP-numbers and giving them out to people to use on their computers had to be devised. After some discussion, the idea came up of using wooden clothes-pegs. Using peg has the following advantages in respect to other methods:

– cheap
– a peg is a ‘token’ and represents one IP-number, therefore making the status of the IP-number (allocated or not allocated) visible.
– a peg can be clipped to a network cable giving a very clear view of where a given IP-number is in use.

Picture Attibution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_DHCP

Wrap up

Sometimes a little history is worth knowing. DHCP servers are a wonderful thing, but I am often surprised that they work so well… because once they were not so great.

Yeah, I am getting a little older.