Sorry to be unappreciative, but this utility has more rough edges than most...
You're welcome to tell me to stop complaining and just fix them myself.


To answer the question "is the network's DHCP server up", the obvious
thing to do is emulate a DHCP client, and ask for service from 255.255.255.255.

But if you just run "dhcping -v" without specifying a server, it defaults
to 0.0.0.0 (without printing any details of packets its sending, contradicting
the manual:
       When running in very verbose mode, dhcping tries to dump
       all data of the send and received DHCP packets. It will
       first dump the packet in hex-format, then decodes the
       header and finally the options.

This, not unsurprisingly, does nothing useful.


If you explicitly specify a server of 255.255.255.255, it complains about
getting a response from a specific address and claims that there was no
answer.

It seems to me that that should work, and be the default behaviour.
Or am I misunderstanding the purpose of the program?

It would be better not to have a default for the server address than a
default of 0.0.0.0.

(Oh, I just found the magic "very verbose" flag: -V.  Man page needs updating,
or perhaps the conventional -vv (I tried up to -v -v -v -v -v -v) should
be supported.)

Thanks for your time!

Hi Edwin,

a user has reported a bug with regards to broadcast addresses in dhcping.
You may want to work on this.  If you reply please copy the mail to
152760@bugs.debian.org so it gets recorded properly in our bug tracking
system.

In addition, a typo has been found in the manpage which you may want
to correct as well:

--- -   2005-10-18 04:10:43.459404000 -0400
+++ /tmp/dhcping8.gz.11054      2005-10-18 04:10:43.000000000 -0400
@@ -220,7 +220,7 @@
 Send the \s-1DHCP\s0 packet to this \s-1IP\s0 address.
 .Ip "\fB\-h\fR \fIclient-hardware-address\fR" 5
 Use this hardware-address in the \s-1DHCP\s0 request. It can be up to
-sixteen octets seperated by colons (i.e. 01:02:03:04)
+sixteen octets separated by colons (i.e. 01:02:03:04)
 .Ip "\fB\-g\fR \fIgateway-\s-1IP\s0\-address\fR" 5
 Use this \s-1IP\s0 address for the gateway \s-1IP\s0 address in the \s-1DHCP\s0 packet.
 This option is currently broken.


Regards,

	Joey

----- Forwarded message from sacrificial-spam-address@horizon.com -----

Date: 12 Jul 2002 15:27:22 -0000
From: sacrificial-spam-address@horizon.com
To: submit@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Ping to braodcast address; doesn't work
Cc: sacrificial-spam-address@horizon.com

Package: dhcping
Version: 1.2-1

Sorry to be unappreciative, but this utility has more rough edges than most...
You're welcome to tell me to stop complaining and just fix them myself.


To answer the question "is the network's DHCP server up", the obvious
thing to do is emulate a DHCP client, and ask for service from 255.255.255.255.

But if you just run "dhcping -v" without specifying a server, it defaults
to 0.0.0.0 (without printing any details of packets its sending, contradicting
the manual:
       When running in very verbose mode, dhcping tries to dump
       all data of the send and received DHCP packets. It will
       first dump the packet in hex-format, then decodes the
       header and finally the options.

This, not unsurprisingly, does nothing useful.


If you explicitly specify a server of 255.255.255.255, it complains about
getting a response from a specific address and claims that there was no
answer.

It seems to me that that should work, and be the default behaviour.
Or am I misunderstanding the purpose of the program?

It would be better not to have a default for the server address than a
default of 0.0.0.0.

(Oh, I just found the magic "very verbose" flag: -V.  Man page needs updating,
or perhaps the conventional -vv (I tried up to -v -v -v -v -v -v) should
be supported.)

Thanks for your time!

----- End forwarded message -----

Dear Maintainer,
--- a/dhcping.c
+++ b/dhcping.c
@@ -73,7 +73,8 @@
     int ch;

     inform=request=verbose=quiet=0;
-    ci=gi=server="0.0.0.0";
+    ci=gi="0.0.0.0";
+    server="255.255.255.255";
     hw="00:00:00:00:00:00";

     if (argc==1) {

Dear Maintainer,
--- a/dhcping.c
+++ b/dhcping.c
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@

 int _serveripaddress;