Understanding the DHCP Request Process

This covers the underlying process of clients requesting and receiving DHCP IP Addresses from DHCP servers.

DHCP MESSAGES

The DHCP process is made up of 4 messages between the client and the DHCP server.

1. Discover - Client broadcasts out to see if there's a DHCP server.
2. Offer - The DHCP Server responses with an IP address the client can have.
3. Request - The end device requests to have the IP address
4. Acknowledgement - The DHCP server acknowledges that the end device has that IP address now.

The messages from the client are broadcasts whereas the DHCP server responds using unicast.