Configuring a DHCP server

The DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server is used to assign IP addresses to network hosts, rather than having to statically assign records to each host. This is, of course, particularly useful where guest devices—such as mobile phones and tablets—connect to you network.

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, a single DHCP server can supply IPv4 and IPv6 configurations. Each configuration has its own separate file: /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf for IPv4 configurations and /etc/dhcpd/dhcpd6.conf for IPv6 configurations. Additionally, if you are used to the previous editions of Red Hat, there is no longer any need to configure the interface in /etc/sysconfig/dhcp. RHEL 7 will automatically listen on all interfaces that match a subnet definition in the dhcpd.conf or dhcpd6.conf file. In other words, interfaces that the DHCP server will listen for DHCP requests will match those interfaces that have addresses within the defined DHCP subnet.