When a DHCP Server responds to a client request for a lease, the server also responds with any configured options for the scope. Options are nothing more than bits of configuration information, such as the servers to use for name resolution, the default domain name, default router, etc. Some options may be specific to a particular scope (for example, the default router for a subnet) or may be more global (such as the default domain name). The former are called scope options and the latter are called server options.

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When a DHCP Server responds to a client request for a lease, the server also responds with any configured options for the scope. Options are nothing more than bits of configuration information, such as the servers to use for name resolution, the default domain name, default router, etc. Some options may be specific to a particular scope, for example, the default router for a subnet; these options are called scope options. Other options may be more global, such as the default domain name; these options are called server options. If you have more than a handful of scopes to configure global settings on, it can be tedious to change them later if you’ve configured them individually as scope options. This is where server options come in. Instead of configuring the default domain name option on each individual scope, you can configure it at the server level. All scopes will then use this server option. You can override any server options by configuring the same option on a scope.

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This filtering is applied to inbound traffic and does not affect outbound traffic.

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Using a graphical user interface

1. From the Control Panel, open the Network Connections applet.
2. Double-click the connection you want to configure.
3. Click the Properties button.
4. Double-click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
5. To enable DHCP, select Obtain an IP address automatically. To use a static address, select Use the following IP address. Then configure the IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway.
6. Click OK until all windows are closed.

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In Windows, open Control Panel -> Networking, then open the Properties box for TCP/IP. Check “Obtain an IP address automatically.”

It’s just as easy in Linux; the only hard part is that every distribution puts the configuration file in a different place. In Red Hat and Fedora, edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 as follows:

TYPE=EthernetDEVICE=eth0

BOOTPROTO=dhcp

ONBOOT=yes

DHCP_HOSTNAME=stinkpad

On Debian, edit /etc/network/interfaces as follows:

auto loiface lo inet loopback

auto eth0

iface eth0 inet dhcp

You may wish to use a graphical configuration tool. On Red Hat and Fedora, use system-config-network. KDE and Gnome have their own GUI configuration tools (as does practically every Linux distribution), so you won’t be short of choices. Another option is netGo, a system-independent network configuration utility that lets you create profiles for easily connecting to different networks