what is the subtil difference between max-lease-time and default-lease-time ?

[Karl Auer]

On Mon, 2006-07-10 at 13:07 +0200, Sébastien CRAMATTE wrote:
> Does anyone could explain me what is the subtil difference between  
> max-lease-time and default-lease-time ?
> To test purpose I've put the same value for  twice in my "dhcpd.conf"

The max-lease-time is the maximum lease time that you will get. If you
ask for (say) 10000 seconds and the maximum lease time is (say) 6000
seconds, then you will get a lease time of 6000 seconds.

The default lease time is the lease time you will get if you don't
request any particular lease time. Generally you set the default lease
time to the lease time you would like everyone to use, and the maximum
lease time to the highest lease time you are prepared to accept. It's
perfectly acceptable to have them configured the same.

> My problem is that I don't understand why state is always active and  
> why starts time of the current lease is inferior to  ends  time of the 
> previous ?

Leases are renewed way ahead of their actual expiry - usually after
about half the lease time has expired. So if your lease is 10000
seconds, the client will generally start trying to renew it after about
5000 seconds. If it succeeds, the new lease time will have a start time
way earlier than the previous lease' end time.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (w/h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)