Command line program to test DHCP service

Question

Is there a simple ping-like command to test whether a DHCP service is running on a network? ...on Linux

mivk · Answer 1 · 2017-11-22T08:02:50.520

Based on this answer, assuming you have installed nmap (sudo apt install nmap):

sudo nmap --script broadcast-dhcp-discover

Add the -e $interface option if you have more than one network interface. (For example: nmap --script broadcast-dhcp-discover -e eth0)

Sample output:

Starting Nmap 7.01 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2017-09-27 17:40 CEST
Pre-scan script results:
| broadcast-dhcp-discover: 
|   Response 1 of 1: 
|     IP Offered: 192.168.81.94
|     DHCP Message Type: DHCPOFFER
|     Server Identifier: 192.168.81.2
|     IP Address Lease Time: 5m00s
|     Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
|     Router: 192.168.81.2
|     Domain Name Server: 192.168.81.2
|     Domain Name: example.lan
|     NTP Servers: 192.168.81.10, 192.168.81.2
|     NetBIOS Name Server: 192.168.81.10
|_    NetBIOS Node Type: 8
WARNING: No targets were specified, so 0 hosts scanned.
Nmap done: 0 IP addresses (0 hosts up) scanned in 0.66 seconds

Or this output on a different network, with nmap v. 6 :

Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2017-09-27 17:42 CEST
Pre-scan script results:
| broadcast-dhcp-discover: 
|   IP Offered: 192.168.4.101
|   DHCP Message Type: DHCPOFFER
|   Server Identifier: 192.168.4.1
|   IP Address Lease Time: 7 days, 0:00:00
|   Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
|   Time Offset: 7200
|   Router: 192.168.4.1
|   Domain Name Server: 208.91.112.53, 208.91.112.52
|   Renewal Time Value: 3 days, 12:00:00
|_  Rebinding Time Value: 6 days, 3:00:00
WARNING: No targets were specified, so 0 hosts scanned.
Nmap done: 0 IP addresses (0 hosts up) scanned in 1.15 seconds

this didn't find my DHCP server.- must be something wrong with my pc... ethernet works, just not that. — Jasen, Nov 22 '17 at 23:27
Note that this script uses a fixed MAC address (DE:AD:CO:DE:CA:FE) and therefore will not work if your DHCP server is configured with a whitelist. — Bob, Oct 08 '19 at 05:27
@Bob An option has been added. --script-args mac=XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX. It hasn't been released yet though. — Aleksandr Dubinsky, Aug 14 '20 at 08:25
For DHCPv6 there's sudo nmap -6 --script broadcast-dhcp6-discover — Ken Sharp, Dec 06 '23 at 07:04

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 20 '11 at 13:16

17

Even if you don't use a Nagios monitoring server, you can grep the check_dhcp binary or compile it from source and use the check to test a DHCP-Server. E.g.

./check_dhcp -v -s <dhcp_server_address> -r <expected_ip_address> -m <mac_address_touse>

answered Sep 20 '11 at 13:16

sandoz

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score 17 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 18 '16 at 15:33

17

or you can try dhcpcd in test mode:

dhcpcd -T eth0

edited Aug 18 '16 at 15:33

chicks

3,819
10
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answered Apr 12 '13 at 14:15

Paul M

583

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Use dhcpcd -T eth0 -t 2 to timeout after 2 seconds – Maarten Wolzak Sep 22 '17 at 11:14
Could you please expand on why should this command detect DHCP servers on your network and what kind of output should we expect when someone will be detected? – Sopalajo de Arrierez May 29 '20 at 19:30
a dhcp server needs to see a packet on the network from a host requesting a dhcp configuration message. therefore we need to mimic a dhcp request,, and this tool will do that and print the response, which will be an ip address, netwmask, default router, and optionally dns resolvers, ntp servers etc. – Paul M Jun 22 '20 at 14:28
not all distros seem to have the dhcpcd program, so you'll have to try the dhclient program in test mode, as discussed elsewhere on this page. – Paul M Dec 11 '20 at 14:03

score 14 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 27 '15 at 01:01

14

dhcpdump is good for sniffing and displaying DHCP packets on the network.

E.g.

# dhcpdump -i eth0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

  TIME: 2015-11-27 11:41:37.379
    IP: 0.0.0.0 (0:11:b9:5:0:b8) > 255.255.255.255 (ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff)
    OP: 1 (BOOTPREQUEST)
 HTYPE: 1 (Ethernet)
  HLEN: 6
  HOPS: 0
   XID: abce9327
  SECS: 0
 FLAGS: 0
CIADDR: 0.0.0.0
YIADDR: 0.0.0.0
SIADDR: 0.0.0.0
GIADDR: 0.0.0.0
CHADDR: 00:11:b9:05:00:b8:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00
 SNAME: .
 FNAME: .
OPTION:  53 (  1) DHCP message type         1 (DHCPDISCOVER)
OPTION:  57 (  2) Maximum DHCP message size 576
OPTION:  55 (  4) Parameter Request List      1 (Subnet mask)
                          3 (Routers)
                         28 (Broadcast address)
                          6 (DNS server)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can use it in conjunction with another tool to do DHCP requests, or just use it to watch PCs/devices query DHCP.

answered Nov 27 '15 at 01:01

Craig McQueen

850

2

Also available for macOS thru brew install dhcpdump. – the Oct 05 '16 at 17:46
1

This seems to only only work if there is actual dhcp traffic on the network. – mivk Sep 27 '17 at 15:51
3

@KenSharp Why? Yes. dhcpdump will only show something when a client on the network requests a dhcp address. If you don't want to wait and don't want to send a dhcp request yourself but only see which machine would answer what IF there were a request, then this is not the solution. – mivk Feb 26 '18 at 15:49
This is what I'd recommend for anyone trying to diagnose TFTP problems. Knowing the thin client wasn't even requesting the field my router UI exposes as "TFTP Server IP/hostname" and just assumes the DHCP and TFTP will be on the same box would have saved me an entire afternoon. – ssokolow Jan 17 '24 at 02:05

score 8 · Answer 5 · edited Mar 15 '18 at 19:08

8

Why not just make a DHCP request?

dhclient

For verbose output use:

dhclient -v

edited Mar 15 '18 at 19:08

Community

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answered Aug 18 '10 at 09:21

Sirex

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Probably because that will make your system use the IP assigned by the DHCP server which is not what one wants when e.g. trying to find out if there are rogue DHCP servers in his network. – ThiefMaster Jun 09 '12 at 18:54
6

-n option helps here? – akostadinov Jan 24 '13 at 22:20
1

Option -n seems to be broken on ISC DHCP Client v4.2.4 on Ubuntu 14 LTS? – Josip Rodin Apr 15 '16 at 14:33
2

I don't think -n does what you think it does. – Jasen Nov 22 '17 at 23:19
https://explainshell.com/explain?cmd=dhclient+-n: "Do not configure any interfaces. This is most likely to be useful in combination with the -w flag." – mwfearnley Jan 28 '19 at 12:22

score 7 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 16 '15 at 02:13

7

I wrote a DHCP test client program a while ago, works on Windows and POSIX:

https://github.com/CyberShadow/dhcptest

answered Jun 16 '15 at 02:13

Vladimir Panteleev

1,812

Written in D... It seems possible (with ldc2) to get static binaries with ldc2 -link-defaultlib-shared=false -static -L=-lphobos2-ldc -L=-lz dhcptest.d – Gert van den Berg Oct 22 '18 at 07:27

score 5 · Answer 7 · edited Jul 25 '16 at 01:09

5

There is a program called dhcping (with just one p)

edited Jul 25 '16 at 01:09

user3771184

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answered Aug 18 '10 at 09:09

topdog

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 21 '10 at 13:11

0

if you use nagios you could monitor it with check_dhcp

answered Aug 21 '10 at 13:11

natxo asenjo

5,819

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 09 '13 at 18:38

0

On Debian-Ubuntu systems:

dhcpd -f

gives good feedback and tests the configuration.

On RH systems try:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/dhcpd configtest

answered Jan 09 '13 at 18:38

John P. Fisher

500

That test is run on the dhcp server to check its configuration, it doesn't tell you if a device on the network will actually see a working server – Paul M May 30 '20 at 21:44

Command line program to test DHCP service

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