Subject: [dhcwg] Reclaiming DoNotAutoConfigure DHCP option code

From: Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:28:27 +0100

There's been discussion on and off over the years about reclaiming unused 
DHCP option codes to free up some more for assignment.

One I think is well overdue to be reclaimed is code 116, 
"DoNotAutoConfigure".

In the six years since that RFC was published, I don't believe a single 
client has implemented the DoNotAutoConfigure option.

It was originally envisaged by @Home as a way of increasing revenue. They 
wanted to charge customers per IP-based device on their home network, 
using DHCP as a mechanism to deny network access to any device the user 
hadn't bought an IP address for. When IPv4LL came along in 1998, devices 
that were denied a DHCP lease would happily self-configure a link-local 
address instead, thereby threatening @Home's ability to impose a printer 
tax on their customers. (It was a bit like airline pricing -- back then, 
if you had a network printer you must be a business, or very rich, and 
either way that meant @Home thought they should be charging you more.)

Of course the world has changed a lot since then. Home users run NAT 
gateways, so ISPs can't sneak DoNotAutoConfigure packets onto their 
networks to knock devices off the network. Even if they did, not one 
printer would honour it. @Home itself is now bankrupt, and we now have 
802.1X as a rational way to control access to the network where that's 
necessary and appropriate.

Is it time we officially obsoleted DoNotAutoConfigure?

Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
 * Wizard Without Portfolio, Apple Computer, Inc.
 * www.stuartcheshire.org

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From: Ralph Droms <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 11:33:52 -0400

Stuart - even if we deprecate the use of the option defined in RFC 2563,
I don't think we should reclaim option code 116.  That option code has
been accepted as a standard and published in an RFC, while the other
reclaimed option codes were never accepted as standards.  Assigning
another option to option code 116 would cause unnecessary confusion over
an accepted standard; and, as a practical matter, we have more than
enough option codes so that we don't need to reassign option code 116.

Regarding deprecating the option defined in RFC 2563, "send text"...

- Ralph

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From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:58:28 -0700

> Is it time we officially obsoleted DoNotAutoConfigure?
Yes.   Although I don't think your explanation of the history of the  
option is accurate.  My recollection is that it was someone at a  
university who initially pushed it, not someone at @Home.   It's been  
a long time, though, so maybe you're right and I'm mistaken.   :'}