#1040379 Bug in dhclient

Package:
isc-dhcp-client
Source:
isc-dhcp-client
Description:
DHCP client for automatically obtaining an IP address
Submitter:
Ralf Pichocki
Date:
2026-08-05 17:33:10 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1040379#5
Date:
2023-07-05 09:00:06 UTC
From:
To:
I am experiencing a strange behaviour, and this might be connected to
the bug #595190 (isc-dhcp-client: goes into an infinite loop if server
only answers on broadcast).

I am trying to debug two DHCP servers (one is on a Windows Server 2012
R2, and the other one is dnsmasq on Ubuntu 22.04).
*To check them both, I am using the option '-s <address>", but this does
not work correctly.*

  * dhclient sends a DHCPDISCOVER, and as the option suggests, it does
    not send this as a broadcast, but as a unicast to the server given
    in the option.
  * Neither DHCP server, however, answers this with a DHCPOFFER, but
    both of them send a DHCPACK.
  * So, it seems as if dhclient assumes to have sent a DHCPDISCOVER and
    thus waits for a DHCPOFFER - whereas the servers seem to interpret
    the package as a DHCPREQUEST and answer with DHCPACK.
  * As this behaviour is identical on both DHCP servers, I dare to
    assume that this is an error in the package sent by dhclient.
  * (Moreover, although I deleted the file /var/lib/dhcp/dhcp.leases,
    the dhclient somehow seems to remember its former lease address and
    inserts it into the DHCPDISCOVER package. Is that correct?)
  * And worse, if I do not delete the old lease file, dhclient sends a
    DHCPREQUEST for its former address - which will can be acknowledged
    if the request is for an address issued from server A, and the
    request goes to server B... (but this might be by design)

I observe the behavior with dhclient

  * sc-dhclient-4.4.3 on Linux Debian 12
  * isc-dhclient-4.4.1 on Linux Mint 20.3 Una
  * sc-dhclient-4.4.1 on LinuxUbuntu 20.04.5

Best regards,
--

Ralf „Pi“ Pichocki.

Bahnhofstraße 190
45770 Marl-Sinsen
Germany

+49 2365 9559945 (Tel)
+46 382 650999 (Tel)

+49 176 43117687 (Mobil)
ralf.pichocki@gmx.de <mailto:ralf.pichocki@gmx.de>(Mail)

#1040379#10
Date:
2026-08-05 17:31:09 UTC
From:
To:
Dear submitter,

as the package isc-dhcp has just been removed from the Debian archive
unstable we hereby close the associated bug reports.  We are sorry
that we couldn't deal with your issue properly.

For details on the removal, please see https://bugs.debian.org/1143544

The version of this package that was in Debian prior to this removal
can still be found using https://snapshot.debian.org/.

Please note that the changes have been done on the master archive and
will not propagate to any mirrors until the next dinstall run at the
earliest.

This message was generated automatically; if you believe that there is
a problem with it please contact the archive administrators by mailing
ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Thorsten Alteholz (the ftpmaster behind the curtain)