Definition: bootp (boot protocol): This relative ancient protocol facilitates booting devices ("clients") from a network server rather than their local hard-disks (such as diskless workstations). In this configuration, the bootp protocol configures the diskless device with its IP configuration information as well as the name of the file server. At this point, the client shifts to TFTP to download the actual files it will use to boot from.

Key point: DHCP is simply an extension on top of bootp. This is important because without an IP address, clients cannot reach bootp servers that reside across routers. Virtually all routers have an extension for bootp forwarding that fixes this issue. Since DHCP had the same requires, the designers just stuck it inside bootp packets rather than requiring yet another change to the routing infrastructure.

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Source: Hacking-Lexicon / Linux Dictionary V 0.16
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Dictionary/html/index.html
Author: Binh Nguyen linuxfilesystem(at)yahoo(dot)com(dot)au
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