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From: jbvb@FTP.COM (James B. Van Bokkelen)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Request For Info On Dynamically Acquiring IP Addresses At Boot
Message-ID: <9104301857.AA16104@ftp.com>
Date: 30 Apr 91 18:57:06 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: jbvb@ftp.com
Organization: The Internet
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    Well, the Sun386i is the first commercial product that I heard of that
    did this.  That was back in 1988; I think they're off the price list
    now.  A design requirement for the product was that, on cooperating
    networks, unsophisticated users be able to unbox the workstation and be
    reading their mail, on a new user account, 15 minutes after it was
    physically cabled together ... and it worked!  ....

We own a single 386i, but not a 'co-operating' net, and never before or
since have we had such a vale of tears for the systems people.  If you limit
the scope of the problem, you can come up with an essentially proprietary
solution.  General solutions aren't so easy, as anyone who's ever installed
a MAC-layer bridge connecting two previously happy Appletalk user communities
can tell you.

    It's sort of perplexing to me to see that nothing else along those lines
    has become available.  I don't think the problem is really technical;
    there are no unsolved problems beyond protocols getting defined and used.
    I suspect that IP networking just hasn't (yet?) reached the kind of mass
    market where real simplicity of operation is obligatory.  For now, most
    sites seem to be happy with solutions requiring administrative involvment
    on every aspect of network (re)configuration.

There is lots of customer demand, but defining an interoperable, scalable
solution to Dynamic Host Configuration is still at least partly a research
issue (yes, I know of the broadcast name-claim schemes, but they don't
scale, and all-knowing servers have to be duplicated, and the duplicates
have to be kept in synchronization...).

James B. VanBokkelen		26 Princess St., Wakefield, MA  01880
FTP Software Inc.		voice: (617) 246-0900  fax: (617) 246-0901