TP-LINK 16-Port Gigabit Web Smart Switch with 2 Combo SFP Slots TL-SG2216WEB Data Sheet

Product codes
TL-SG2216WEB
Page of 207
 
Most clients obtain IP addresses dynamically, which is illustrated in the following figure.   
 
Figure 5-18 Interaction between a DHCP client and a DHCP server 
1) 
DHCP-DISCOVER Stage:  The Client broadcasts the DHCP-DISCOVER packet to find 
the DHCP  server. 
2) 
DHCP-OFFER Stage:  Upon receiving the DHCP-DISCOVER packet, the DHCP server 
selects an IP address from the IP pool according to the assigning priority of the IP 
addresses and replies to the client with DHCP-OFFER packet carrying the IP address and 
other information. 
3) 
DHCP-REQUEST Stage: In the situation that there are several DHCP servers sending the 
DHCP-OFFER packets, the client will only respond to the first received DHCP-OFFER 
packet and broadcast the DHCP-REQUEST packet which includes the assigned IP 
address of the DHCP-OFFER packet.       
4) 
DHCP-ACK Stage: Since the DHCP-REQUEST packet is broadcasted, all DHCP servers 
on the network segment can receive it. However, only the requested server processes the 
request. If the DHCP server acknowledges assigning this IP address to the client, it will 
send the DHCP-ACK packet back to the client. Otherwise, the Server will send the 
DHCP-NAK  packet to refuse assigning this IP  address to the client.    
 
DHCP Cheating Attack 
During the working process of DHCP, generally there is no authentication mechanism between 
Server and Client. If there are several DHCP servers in the network, network confusion and 
security problem will happen. The common cases incurring the illegal DHCP servers are the 
following two:   
1)  It’s  common that the illegal DHCP  server is manually configured by the user by mistake. 
2)  Hacker exhausted the IP addresses of the normal DHCP server and then pretended to be 
a legal DHCP server to assign the IP addresses and the other parameters to Clients. For 
example, hacker used the pretended DHCP server to assign a modified DNS server 
address to users so as to induce the users to the evil financial website or electronic trading 
website and cheat the users of their accounts and passwords. The following figure 
illustrates the DHCP  Cheating Attack implementation procedure. 
62