DHCP Client in Continuous Discovery Mode (Layer 2 and Layer 3 Devices)
The DHCP Client process starts
automatically when the system boots up and runs in a continuous manner.
Each time a DHCP Discovery message is sent, the interval between messages is incremented by twice the current interval multiplied by a random number between zero and one. If it is greater than the backoff-cutoff amount, it is set to that amount. The client uses an exponential backoff algorithm with some randomness, so that if many clients try to configure themselves at the same time, they will not make their requests in lockstep. The maximum amount of time that the client is allowed to back off, will be evaluated randomly between 1/2 to 1 1/2 times the maximum backoff-cutoff of 64 seconds.