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Low tech DHCP (jlai.lu)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The RFC is actually real, though it it basically a joke: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2322

Management of IP numbers by peg-dhcp

Introduction This RFC describes a protocol to dynamically hand out ip-numbers on field networks and small events that don't necessarily have a clear organisational body.

History of the protocol.

The practice of using pegs for assigning IP-numbers was first used at the HIP event (http://www.hip97.nl/). HIP stands for Hacking In Progress, a large three-day event where more then a thousand hackers from all over the world gathered. This event needed to have a TCP/IP lan with an Internet connection. Visitors and participants of the HIP could bring along computers and hook them up to the HIP network.

During preparations for the HIP event we ran into the problem of how to assign IP-numbers on such a large scale as was predicted for the event without running into troubles like assigning duplicate numbers or skipping numbers. Due to the variety of expected computers with associated IP stacks a software solution like a Unix DHCP server would probably not function for all cases and create unexpected technical problems.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It's not a joke if it specifies a procedure to solve a real-world problem.

RFC 2549 is a joke, RFC 1149 is almost a joke (basically a spec for a sneakernet, XKCD What If 31 ), RFC 2324 is mostly a joke but also an example of IoT... and a similar thing goes for all of these:

https://tangentsoft.com/rfcs/humorous.html

Even the ones most intended as a joke, have some grain of usefulness in them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

The XKCD one is interesting, but seems to be missing the transfer to/from the storage medium sent by FedEx.

If I want to move data from my computer to yours over the internet, the internet bandwidth between our devices/networks is the main consideration. If I’m FedExing SD cards or HDDs, I’ve also gotta take into account the transfer times to get the data ONTO those devices.

I wonder how the analysis would fair when taking into account:

speed of internet
TB/kg of storage
storage medium transfer speeds

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Written on 1 April 1998. definitely a joke, though it does work.