strange DHCPDECLINE behaviour on fixed/static address

[Anthony Papineau]

What is the default for the 'decline' keyword in dhcpd.conf?  allow/ 
deny/ignore ?
We had a strange problem with system over the weekend.  It started  
sending DHCPDECLINE messages to the server.

I have not explicitly set allow, deny or ignore for the decline  
keyword in dhcp.conf.  The server is configured to assign a fixed  
address for this particular system - so we ended up with thousands of  
repeated occurrences of: DHCPDISCOVER, DHCPOFFER, DHCPREQUEST,  
DHCPACK, DHCPDECLINE sequences.

I'm guessing that since the address is fixed in the server it doesn't  
try to remove the address from the pool etc, however what should it  
do?  And how does setting allow, deny, or ignore affect it?

 From what little documentation I can find, it looks like setting  
ignore decline will at least stop the DHCPDECLINE message from being  
logged - however unless the client does something different I'm still  
going to get looping requests for the IP for that system.

What is the client supposed to do if the server deny's the  
DHCPDECLINE message?

Thanks in advance,
Anthony

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Anthony R. Papineau
Systems & Network Administrator
Exegenix Canada, Exegenix Research
416-762-2433, 416-762-2453(fax)
http://www.exegenix.com