#773358 isc-dhcp-client: dhclient ipv4 ipv6 dualstack don't work well together

Package:
isc-dhcp-client
Source:
isc-dhcp
Description:
DHCP client for automatically obtaining an IP address
Submitter:
Andrew King
Date:
2026-08-05 17:33:57 UTC
Severity:
normal
#773358#5
Date:
2014-12-17 13:01:16 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

I have a dual-stack home network, with ip6 & ip4 addresses provided by dhcp from my router.
However, by default I cannot get both interfaces to come up correctly

My /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf is

option rfc3442-classless-static-routes code 121 = array of unsigned integer 8;
interface "eth0"
{
send host-name = gethostname();
#append domain-name-servers 192.168.178.1;
#append domain-name "fritz.box";
#append domain-search "fritz.box";
#append dhcp6.name-servers 2001:470:xxxxxx; # ip removed
#append dhcp6.domain-search "fritz.box";
supersede domain-name-servers 192.168.178.1;
supersede domain-name "fritz.box";
supersede domain-search "fritz.box";
supersede dhcp6.name-servers 2001:470:xxxxxx; # ip removed
supersede dhcp6.domain-search "fritz.box";
request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers,
    domain-name, domain-name-servers, domain-search, host-name,
    dhcp6.name-servers, dhcp6.domain-search,
    netbios-name-servers, netbios-scope, interface-mtu,
    rfc3442-classless-static-routes, ntp-servers;
}


in /etc/network/interfaces I have (currently)

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
iface eth0 inet6 dhcp
    autoconf 1

In the order specified, the v4 and v6 addresses comes up fine, but the ipv6 dhcp overwrites /etc/resolv.conf (ignores the supersede lines)
In the reverse order (ipv6 first) the v6 address comes up fine (apart from resolv.conf), but the v4 fails
(manually running dhclient -v -4 gives "No broadcast interfaces found - exiting")

The bugs are:
1. dhclient seems to be ignoring the supersede (and/or append) lines (at least for ipv6)
2. dhclient -4 fails when an interface is active with an ipv6 address
3. (my router sends the wrong nameserver for ipv6 - not the subject of this bug though)

For now, I have added a hook in /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/ to recreate resolv.conf using the ipv4 nameservers.

Regards,
Andrew

#773358#10
Date:
2018-12-08 21:35:48 UTC
From:
To:
Hi there,
[...]
[...]

I guess the interaction between the two dhclient (IPv4 and IPv6) was
buggy, given that while setting up my fiber7.ch dual-stack home
connection I ended up with a similar problem, but with the "prepend"
option.

Basically, if you specify both...

  prepend domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1;
  prepend dhcp6.name-servers ::1;

...the first prepend (i.e. the IPv4 one) does not work.

The prepend issue is an upstream bug which should be fixed in 4.4.0
(only available in experimental, currently at 4.4.1-1):

  <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=643890#c10>

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca

#773358#15
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)