When DHCP starts the client has no idea about the network it’s currently on. Some clients may store the IP address they were previously on and send this out with the Discovery and Request packets, but the network is not truly set up until after the server has sent it’s final Ack message. Because of this the server does not know the network’s true broadcast address, however there is an address mapped for this very purpose. 255.255.255.255 If you run arp -a you will see that every interface has the following mapping 255.255.255.255 ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff static This means that just like a networks broadcast IP this message will be transmitted to all network adapters on the local network segment. The DHCP server listens for messages heading for port 67 UDP while the DHCP client listens for messages on port 68 UDP Lets lake a look at a DORA sequence in Wireshark 148 16.564069 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 DHCP 342 DHCP Discover - Transaction ID 0xaccba128 149 16.5...
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