Some messages in syslog.log

[Patrick Chim]

Hi,

There are some messages prompting in the syslog.log which I have never seen before. What does it mean at all ?

Dec 3 15:31:45 cishp01 bootpd[13513]: bootpd 2.4 #1.17.112.7: Wed Apr 14 05:09:15 GMT 1999
Dec 3 15:31:45 cishp01 bootpd[13513]: reading "/etc/dhcptab"
Dec 3 15:31:45 cishp01 bootpd[13513]: group count: 0
Dec 3 15:31:45 cishp01 bootpd[13513]: reading "/etc/bootptab"
Dec 3 15:31:45 cishp01 bootpd[13513]: read 1 entries from "/etc/bootptab"

Regards,
Patrick

[Rainer von Bongartz]

These messages come from bootpd which server bootp and DHCP requests.

If you dont need bootpd edit
/etc/rc.config.d/netdaemons and set
START_RBOOTD to 0

Regards
Rainer

[Patrick Chim]

Hi,

Do these messages harm to the system ? If I disable the bootpd, will there any impact on the server ?

Regards,
Patrick

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Take a look at your /etc/bootptab

If it has any entries except for the comments, and usual 'test' definition, then bootp isn't doing anything on this machine anyway and can be safely disabled.

If there are other enries, it could be that bootpp is serving DHCP or other requests for IP address/boot time information.

HTH

Duncan

[Steven Gillard_2 · Accepted solution]

These messages come from bootpd, which is the daemon on HPUX that handles BOOTP and DHCP requests, which are both protocols for assigning IP addresses to network devices such as printers, PC's, X-terms etc.

The bootpd process is started from inetd every time a new request comes in on UDP port 67, and will run for a period of time then exit if no new requests are received.

The messages in your syslog indicate that inetd has received a bootp/dhcp request and has started the bootpd process to handle this request.

The configuration files for bootpd are /etc/bootptab and /etc/dhcptab, so check these files for valid configurations to decide if you really need bootpd or not. Also consult the bootpd(1m) man page for details on the format of these files. If you do not need it you can comment out the bootpd line in /etc/inetd.conf, and run inetd -c. That will stop the messages.

Regards,
Steve