dhcpd version 4.1.1 in production environment ?

[sthaug at nethelp.no]

> We are using isc-dhcp 3.0.7 in our production environment at the moment.
> Two RHEL linux servers, failover, loadsharing -  about 570 subnets.
> 
> I understand that there has been a lot of development in the failover protocol and I am interested in 
> taking advantage of that. The failover scenario is very important to us due to the many subnets.
> 
> What is the concensus of moving to version 4.1.1 ( or anything beyond 3.0) ?
> 
> I am a little puzzled/concerned, as to why linux distributions and FreeBSD are using old versions
> of dhcpd. Red Hat defaults to 3.0.5, OpenSuse defaults to 3.1.2 and FreeBSD latest version in the ports is 3.1.3.

This depends on the Red Hat and FreeBSD maintainers, obviously.

We have been running 4.1.1 (beta versions) in a failover config since
April 2009. Around 100k leases in 176 pools. Currently running on
FreeBSD 7.2-STABLE.

There have been several important bug fixes regarding failover, and one
important bug fix for a memory leak. We are very happy with the stability
of the latest 4.1.1 versions (4.1.1b3, 4.1.1rc1, 4.1.1 release version).

> Does that mean version 4.1.1 is not really tested and ready or are the old versions so good that nobody wants to move ?
> Should we maybe go for version 3.1.x instead of 4.1.1 ?

As far as I know the latest failover fixes have also been incorporated
in 3.1.x. Having said that, 4.1.1 is rock solid for us (no crashes, no
memory leaks), and the fact that it also supports IPv6 is a big plus.
I would say that 4.1.1 has been tested quite extensively.

Note that some parts of the failover protocol (e.g. dhcpd state id) have
changed between 3.0.x and {3.1.x, 4.x.x} - thus if you upgrade from
3.0.7 you need to upgrade both servers in your failover pair.

Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug at nethelp.no