Discovery of SmartZone Based on DHCP Option 43

Beginning with SmartZone release 5.0, you can monitor and manage switches and routers in the RUCKUS ICX switches. ICX (the DHCP client) can parse the value of DHCP option 43 containing SmartZone IP addresses received from the DHCP server and connect to SmartZone.

Discovery of SmartZone based on DHCP option 43 works in the following manner:

  • The DHCP client sends the vendor class identifier (VCI) option as "Ruckus CPE" to the DHCP server in every request packet.
  • The DHCP client processes the vendor-specific information (VSI) option data during the RENEW & REBIND process.
  • The SmartZone IP Address data received through VSI is not displayed in the running configuration.
  • The show ip dhcp-client options command displays the received VSI data in TLV or ASCII format. The data can be displayed in two formats based on data received. Refer to the show ip dhcp-client options command in the RUCKUS FastIron Command Reference for more information.
  • If the DHCP client fails to parse the received VSI data, or is not able to extract the SmartZone IP addresses from the VSI data received, the SmartZone IP addresses are not passed to the FSM API.

The following example shows how a DHCP server can be configured to send SmartZone IP addresses to ICX devices using DHCP Option 43.

Configure DHCP Option 43 on the DHCP server, using RKUS.scg-address to identify the SmartZone IP addresses. A single SmartZone IP address or a comma-separated list can be configured. SmartZone IP addresses are sent with a sub-option value of 6. The ICX device ignores all other data in DHCP Option 43 if SmartZone IP addresses are present. The IP addresses listed in the following configuration are examples only. 

subnet 192.168.12.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.12.100 192.168.12.199;
option routers 192.168.12.1;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 192.168.12.255;
option ntp-servers 192.168.11.22;
class "Ruckus AP" {
match if option vendor-class-identifier = "Ruckus CPE";
option vendor-class-identifier "Ruckus CPE";
default-lease-time 86400;
vendor-option-space RKUS;
option RKUS.scg-address "192.168.11.200, 192.168.11.201, 192.168.11.202";
}
}

Configuration Notes and Feature Limitations

The following configuration notes and feature limitations apply for discovery of SmartZone based on DHCP option 43:

  • The vendor-specific information (VSI) data received from the DHCP server must be in simple ASCII text format.
  • The VCI option must be configured as “Ruckus CPE” and sent to the DHCP server during DHCP discovery and renewed. The DHCP server then fills the VSI option data in the offer packet that is sent to the client in response.
  • A maximum of 128 characters (bytes) of VSI data can be received and processed by the DHCP client. If the received VSI data size is more than 128 characters, the DHCP client does not save or process the received data.
  • With the exception of the “create default ve” value and SmartZone IP addresses in ASCII format with sub-option 7, the DHCP client treats any received option 43 information in TLV format.
  • The DHCP client passes the IP address list to the FSM API only when the received VSI data is in TLV format with sub-option Code 6, and the corresponding data is in IP address format with a comma (,) separating the IP addresses.
Parent topic: DHCP Clients