Should We Continue Supporting Managed DHCP in Foreman?

[ekohl]

@nofaralfasi

Given this, we’re considering whether it still makes sense to maintain managed DHCP support or if we should focus on alternative approaches - such as unmanaged DHCP, where Foreman does not control the DHCP server but can still read and display leases.

I still think the term “unmanaged DHCP” is wildly confusing so perhaps we can first clarify exactly what we mean by it.

The first level means the Smart Proxy is configured to talk to a DHCP server. This to me means managed. Smart Proxy DHCP Providers that work on this level are smart_proxy_dhcp_infoblox and smart_proxy_dhcp_remote_isc.

A tighter integration is where the installer also manages the DHCP server implementation. We only have this with the dhcp_isc provider. Note you can configure the installer to not manage the DHCP server and still use dhcp_isc.

By those definitions you can’t read and display leases on unmanaged DHCP because it’s all a black box what happens at the DHCP layer.

Perhaps you can elaborate how you see these definitions.