H3C Technologies H3C S5120 Series Switches - Manual (Page 262)

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BOOTP Client Configuration
While configuring a BOOTP client, go to these sections for information you are interested in:
z Introduction to BOOTP Client
z Configuring an Interface to Dynamically Obtain an IP Address Through BOOTP
z Displaying and Maintaining BOOTP Client Configuration
If several VLAN interfaces sharing the same MAC address obtain IP addresses through a BOOTP relay
agent, the BOOTP server cannot be a Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 Server.
Introduction to BOOTP Client
This section covers these topics:
z BOOTP Application
z Obtaining an IP Address Dynamically
z Protocols and Standards
BOOTP Application
After you specify an interface of a device as a BOOTP client, the interface can use BOOTP to get
information (such as IP address) from the BOOTP server, which simplifies your configuration.
Before using BOOTP, an administrator needs to configure a BOOTP parameter file for each BOOTP
client on the BOOTP server. The parameter file contains information such as MAC address and IP
address of a BOOTP client. When a BOOTP client originates a request to the BOOTP server, the
BOOTP server will search for the BOOTP parameter file and return the corresponding configuration
information.
Because you need to configure a parameter file for each client on the BOOTP server, BOOTP usually
runs under a relatively stable environment. If the network changes frequently, DHCP is more suitable.
Because a DHCP server can interact with a BOOTP client, you can use the DHCP server to configure
an IP address for the BOOTP client, without any BOOTP server.