Developers guide

Chapter 5

Configuration 23

dns PacketFence IP address in this network. In

inline type, set it to a valid DNS production

server

dhcp_start Starting IP address of the DHCP scope

dhcp_end Ending IP address of the DHCP scope

dhcp_default_lease_time Default DHCP lease time

dhcp_max_lease_time Maximum DHCP lease time

type vlan-registration or vlan-isolation or inline

named Is PacketFence the DNS for this network ?

(Enabled/Disabled) set it to enabled

dhcpd Is PacketFence the DHCP server for this

network ? (Enabled/Disabled) set it to

enabled

nat Is PacketFence route or NAT the traffic for this

network ? (yes/no) NAT enabled by default,

set to no to route

When starting PacketFence generates the DHCP configuration files by reading the information provided

in networks.conf:

The DHCP configuration file is written to var/conf/dhcpd.conf using conf/dhcpd.conf as a template.

Production DHCP access

In order to perform all of its access control duties, PacketFence needs to be able to map MAC addresses

into IP addresses.

For all the networks/VLANs where you want PacketFence to have the ability to isolate a node or to have

IP information about nodes, you will need to perform one of the techniques below.

Also note that this doesn’t need to be done for the registration, isolation VLANs and inline interfaces

since PacketFence acts as the DHCP server in these networks.

IP Helpers (recommended)

If you are already using IP Helpers for your production DHCP in your production VLANs this approach is

the simplest one and the one that works the best.

Add PacketFence’s management IP address as the last ip helper-address statement in your network

equipment. At this point PacketFence will receive a copy of all DHCP requests for that VLAN and will record

what IP were distributed to what node using a pfdhcplistener daemon.