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Kea and deprecation of ISC DHCP

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  Kea and deprecation of ISC DHCP jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> - 2026-08-17 11:33 -0400
    Re: Kea and deprecation of ISC DHCP Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-08-17 17:48 +0200
    Re: Kea and deprecation of ISC DHCP Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com> - 2026-08-17 16:38 +0000
    Re: Kea and deprecation of ISC DHCP Sylvain Robitaille <syl@therockgarden.ca> - 2026-08-17 18:45 +0000

#35735 — Kea and deprecation of ISC DHCP

It looks like that old girl, ISC DHCP is being put to pasture. The
Current Changelog:

n/kea-3.2.0-x86_64-1.txz:  Added.
  This is the modern DHCPv4/v6 server from ISC, which replaces the
  deprecated ISC dhcp. With ISC dhcp moved to /pasture, the included
  dhclient DHCP client is also gone. If you're still using it, it's
  time to switch to dhcpcd. 

pasture/dhcp-4.4.3_P1-x86_64-1.txz:  Added.

The issue is, I'm using dhclient and dhcpd for my internal LAN; my
Linux box is the router. Now I'm trying to plan on how to proceed. Other
network details:

- ip4, ip6, and DECnet are also routed
- IPX, Chaosnet also present 
- network is wired and wireless
- most of the action is on a bridge, br0, (virtual switch I guess)
- dhclient gets ip6 prefix delegation for the LAN
- radvd sends it down the line
- dhcpd does DHCP for ip4 for the LAN
- SLAAC for ip6, for ip6-able hosts (see radvd point above)
- dhcpcd getting global ip4 from ISP (that is, dhcpcd is already in use)
- diverse network of game consoles, phones, Linux, Sun, and DEC systems

Other software parts in use (these will factor into any choice below):
- dhcpd/dhclient from ISC
- radvd
- hostapd for wireless AP
- pydecnet
- linux decnet
- iptables (for NAT: -j MASQUERADE)
- some custom scripts to bind this all together

Now, with ISC dhcp going away, I will eventually have to select a
different choice. Right now as I can see it, these choices are:

1. Do nothing and hope ISC dhcp stays around in Slackware
2. Wrangle Kea (I know almost nothing about it), moving off ISC dhcp
3. Migrate to dnsmasq

Moving to dnsmasq would have some added benefits, but would require
completely reworking the network. I have zero experience with dnsmasq,
but it looks like it would handle alot of the things I'd need. Migrating
to Kea would involve trial and error, and an assumption that it will
work as ISC dhcp does. I don't even know if it has a "dhclient" and
"dhcpd" binary or work-alike.

My question is: what are you that are using ISC dhcp doing about it now
that it is put to pasture? Will you be using Kea? What do you suggest I
do, considering all the moving parts I'm looking at? General Kea versus
ISC dhcp and migration discussion, also.

-- 
PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356  7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
       "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

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#35736

Am 17.08.26 um 17:33 schrieb jayjwa:
> It looks like that old girl, ISC DHCP is being put to pasture. The
> Current Changelog:
> 
> n/kea-3.2.0-x86_64-1.txz:  Added.
>    This is the modern DHCPv4/v6 server from ISC, which replaces the
>    deprecated ISC dhcp. With ISC dhcp moved to /pasture, the included
>    dhclient DHCP client is also gone. If you're still using it, it's
>    time to switch to dhcpcd.
> 
> pasture/dhcp-4.4.3_P1-x86_64-1.txz:  Added.
> 
> The issue is, I'm using dhclient and dhcpd for my internal LAN; my
> Linux box is the router. Now I'm trying to plan on how to proceed. Other
> network details:
> 
> - ip4, ip6, and DECnet are also routed
> - IPX, Chaosnet also present
> - network is wired and wireless
> - most of the action is on a bridge, br0, (virtual switch I guess)
> - dhclient gets ip6 prefix delegation for the LAN
> - radvd sends it down the line
> - dhcpd does DHCP for ip4 for the LAN
> - SLAAC for ip6, for ip6-able hosts (see radvd point above)
> - dhcpcd getting global ip4 from ISP (that is, dhcpcd is already in use)
> - diverse network of game consoles, phones, Linux, Sun, and DEC systems
> 
> Other software parts in use (these will factor into any choice below):
> - dhcpd/dhclient from ISC
> - radvd
> - hostapd for wireless AP
> - pydecnet
> - linux decnet
> - iptables (for NAT: -j MASQUERADE)
> - some custom scripts to bind this all together
> 
> Now, with ISC dhcp going away, I will eventually have to select a
> different choice. Right now as I can see it, these choices are:
> 
> 1. Do nothing and hope ISC dhcp stays around in Slackware

I don't think it will stay the next years. It has been out of support by 
ISC for some years and doesn't receive any bugfixes anymore

> 2. Wrangle Kea (I know almost nothing about it), moving off ISC dhcp

Is there any issue with that?
How did you handle the DHCPv6-PD in dhcpd?

Is there maybe a solution with NetworkManager for that?

-- 
Gruß
Marco

Junk-Mail bitte an trashcan@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

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#35737

On Mon, 17 Aug 2026 11:33:08 -0400, jayjwa wrote:
> My question is: what are you that are using ISC dhcp doing about it now
> that it is put to pasture? Will you be using Kea?

Right now, this is no problem for me. All my machines configured as dhcp 
servers are running Slackware stable.

Once next stable version of Slackware is released I will evaluate the 
usefulness of Kea and if it somehow does not suit my needs I will 
probably resort to the dhcp package from pasture.

> What do you suggest I do, considering all the moving parts I'm looking
> at? General Kea versus ISC dhcp and migration discussion, also.

For anything mission critical, I would suggest stable Slackware 15.0 
rather than current right now. Slackware current is a test bed for the 
next stable version of Slackware. It might get package updates with new 
non backwards compatible versions breaking existing configuration files. 
It might simply get some bugs which breaks functionality. It seems as if 
Slackware current still is far from getting into any "feature freeze", 
"beta" ore "release candidate" status. Instead you should expect updates 
causing bugs or breaking existing configurations.

regards Henrik

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#35738

On 2026-08-17, jayjwa wrote:

> My question is: what are you that are using ISC dhcp doing about
> it now that it is put to pasture? Will you be using Kea?

I fully expect that I will move to Kea sooner than later.  In fact,
I *expected* to already have moved to it by now, but haven't worked
on that at all.  My DHCP server runs on a Slackware-15.0 system,
so some local compilation will be necessary (unless next stable is
released and installed here before I get to working on that).

I wrote to Patrick back in February, and proposed a patch and
SlackBuild script that got the then-latest Kea compiling cleanly on
my own Slackware-current system.  I had not (and *still* have not)
tested to confirm that the same would build cleanly on Slackware-15.0,
but feel free to examine https://github.com/syl-robitaille/Slackware-Kea
if you're even mildly curious.

Examining the build script for the new package in Slackware-current,
I'm inclined to believe that Patrick was likely already aware of the
need for Kea when I wrote to him, and was likely also already working
on getting it into -current, and ultimately waited until all that
was needed was already in place to get it compiling cleanly *without*
patching.  I won't be needing my patch after all, unless I still need
it (or an updated version of it) to build this on Slackware-15.0.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille                                syl@therockgarden.ca
----------------------------------------------------------------------

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