Command line program to test DHCP service
Solution 1:
Based on this answer, assuming you have installed nmap (sudo apt install nmap):
sudo nmap --script broadcast-dhcp-discover
Add the -e $interface option if you have more than one network interface. (For example: nmap --script broadcast-dhcp-discover -e eth0)
Sample output:
Starting Nmap 7.01 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2017-09-27 17:40 CEST
Pre-scan script results:
| broadcast-dhcp-discover:
| Response 1 of 1:
| IP Offered: 192.168.81.94
| DHCP Message Type: DHCPOFFER
| Server Identifier: 192.168.81.2
| IP Address Lease Time: 5m00s
| Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
| Router: 192.168.81.2
| Domain Name Server: 192.168.81.2
| Domain Name: example.lan
| NTP Servers: 192.168.81.10, 192.168.81.2
| NetBIOS Name Server: 192.168.81.10
|_ NetBIOS Node Type: 8
WARNING: No targets were specified, so 0 hosts scanned.
Nmap done: 0 IP addresses (0 hosts up) scanned in 0.66 seconds
Or this output on a different network, with nmap v. 6 :
Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2017-09-27 17:42 CEST
Pre-scan script results:
| broadcast-dhcp-discover:
| IP Offered: 192.168.4.101
| DHCP Message Type: DHCPOFFER
| Server Identifier: 192.168.4.1
| IP Address Lease Time: 7 days, 0:00:00
| Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
| Time Offset: 7200
| Router: 192.168.4.1
| Domain Name Server: 208.91.112.53, 208.91.112.52
| Renewal Time Value: 3 days, 12:00:00
|_ Rebinding Time Value: 6 days, 3:00:00
WARNING: No targets were specified, so 0 hosts scanned.
Nmap done: 0 IP addresses (0 hosts up) scanned in 1.15 seconds
Solution 2:
Even if you don't use a Nagios monitoring server, you can grep the check_dhcp binary or compile it from source and use the check to test a DHCP-Server. E.g.
./check_dhcp -v -s <dhcp_server_address> -r <expected_ip_address> -m <mac_address_touse>
Solution 3:
or you can try dhcpcd in test mode:
dhcpcd -T eth0
Solution 4:
dhcpdump is good for sniffing and displaying DHCP packets on the network.
E.g.
# dhcpdump -i eth0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TIME: 2015-11-27 11:41:37.379
IP: 0.0.0.0 (0:11:b9:5:0:b8) > 255.255.255.255 (ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff)
OP: 1 (BOOTPREQUEST)
HTYPE: 1 (Ethernet)
HLEN: 6
HOPS: 0
XID: abce9327
SECS: 0
FLAGS: 0
CIADDR: 0.0.0.0
YIADDR: 0.0.0.0
SIADDR: 0.0.0.0
GIADDR: 0.0.0.0
CHADDR: 00:11:b9:05:00:b8:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00
SNAME: .
FNAME: .
OPTION: 53 ( 1) DHCP message type 1 (DHCPDISCOVER)
OPTION: 57 ( 2) Maximum DHCP message size 576
OPTION: 55 ( 4) Parameter Request List 1 (Subnet mask)
3 (Routers)
28 (Broadcast address)
6 (DNS server)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can use it in conjunction with another tool to do DHCP requests, or just use it to watch PCs/devices query DHCP.
Solution 5:
Why not just make a DHCP request?
dhclient
For verbose output use:
dhclient -v