Monitoring DHCP Servers

eG Enterprise prescribes a unique DHCP monitoring model (see Figure 1) for the DHCP server, which keeps a watchful eye on the requests received and acknowledgments sent by the server to help administrators determine the following:

• How quickly is the DHCP server processing request packets? Were too many requests enqueued? Have too many packets expired?
• Is the hardware on the DHCP server adequately sized to facilitate swift processing of the request packets?
• Were any negative acknowledgment messages sent by the DHCP server?
• Were any DHCP decline messages received by the server?
• Have enough IP addresses been configured on the server for assignment to clients?

Figure 1 : Layer model of a DHCP server

Every layer of Figure 1 above is mapped to a set of tests. The eG agent executing on the DHCP server runs these tests on the server, and extracts the metrics of interest.

Since the bottom 5 layers of Figure 1 have already been discussed in the Monitoring Unix and Windows Servers document, the section to come will discuss the DHCP Services layer only.