Allied Telesis AT-8600 Series User Manual

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Page 8 | AlliedWare™ OS How To Note: DHCP Snooping on Rapier-style switches
DHCP Option 82
DHCP Option 82
DHCP Relay Agent Information Option 82 is an extension to the Dynamic Host 
Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and is defined in RFC 3046 and RFC 3993. 
DHCP Option 82 can be used to send information about DHCP clients to the authenticating 
DHCP server. DHCP Option 82 will identify the VLAN number, port number and, optionally 
a customer ID of a client, during any IP address allocation. When DHCP Option 82 is enabled 
on the switch, it inserts the above information into the DHCP packets as they pass through 
the switch on their way to the DHCP server. The DHCP server stores the IP allocation 
record.
DHCP Option 82 can work in either layer 2 forwarding or layer 3 routing modes. There are 
significant differences in operation and configuration of these two modes – the latter needing 
BOOTP Relay support. Some configuration examples and operation descriptions are 
provided in a later section of this document.
Although Option 82 is titled the DHCP Relay Agent Information Option, the device that 
inserts the Option 82 information into a DHCP packet does not have to be acting as DHCP 
relay. A layer 2 switch can insert the Option 82 information into the DHCP packets (if 
snooping is enabled). The Option 82 information needs to be inserted into the DHCP 
packets by a switch at the edge of the network, because only the edge switch knows the 
information that uniquely identifies the subscriber that the IP address was allocated to.
It is quite likely that the edge switch will be a layer 2 switch, rather than a DCHP-relaying 
layer 3 switch.