DHCP Snooping

• DHCP Snooping inspects DHCP packets to prevent networking problems and attacks from rogue DHCP servers
• Compares addresses on the DHCP Snooping binding table
  • The binding table records the Client's MAC address, IP address, IP Lease time, and VLAN to its interface
    • 
  • DAI also uses the Snooping table in its frame validation
• It identifies ports as Trusted or Untrusted
  • Trusted ports forward all DHCP messages without inspection
  • Untrusted ports act on all DHCP messages
    • Discard DHCP server messages
    • Inspect DHCP client messages
      • Forwards messages that match its configured information on the DHCP snooping table, and discards messages that don't match
        • Discover/Request DHCP Messages
          • Check the frame's source MAC and the DHCP message's CHADDR (Client Hardware Address, i.e. the client's MAC address) fields match
        • Release/Decline DHCP Messages
          • Check the source IP and receiving interface match the entry on the binding table
• Rate Limiting
  • Automatically disables interfaces that send more requests than a configured threshold
  • Error Disabled interfaces can be manually or automatically returned to service
• DHCP Option 82 (aka information option)
  • Optionally and only sent by DHCP relay agents on messages they forward to the DHCP Server
    • Provides information about which relay agent is forwarding the message, the VLAN, interface, etc.
  • By default, DHCP Snooping tags all messages from clients with option 82
    • However, Layer 2 Switches drop incoming DHCP packets with Option 82 on untrusted ports by default
    • Similarly, Cisco Routers acting as DHCP server will drop
      • Error message keywords:
        • inconsistent relay information
        • relay information option exists, but giaddr is zero
    • It is therefore important to disable option 82 when configuring DHCP Snooping
      • config# no ip dhcp snooping information option

DHCP Snooping config

1. Enable IP DHCP snooping
   2. config# ip dhcp snooping
2. Assign a VLAN to be snooped
   1. config# ip dhcp snooping vlan <vlan ID>
3. Disable IP DHCP snooping information
   1. config# no ip dhcp snooping information option
4. Trust the server-facing interface
   1. config-if# ip dhcp snooping trust
5. Check DHCP snooping table
   1. #sho ip dhcp snooping binding
6. Configure DHCP rate limiting
   1. config-if-range# ip dhcp snooping limit rate <allowed messages per second>
7. Configure errdisable recovery
   1. config# errdisable recovery cause dhcp-rate-limit
   2. # show errdisable recovery

Metadata

OSI or TCP/IP Layer

CCNA Exam Topic

Contributors

Sources

Configuring DHCP Snooping - Cisco Systems