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Welcome to the Slackware Documentation Project

DHCP Server via DNSMasq

To set up a DHCP server you can use the dhcp package (included with Slackware)
or
you can do it the easier way and use DNSMasq (also included with Slackware).

Assuming that you do not have DNSMasq installed:

  1. Install the official dnsmasq Slackware package either by pkgtool or slackpkg.
  2. Make DNSMasq start on boot:
    # chmod  755 /etc/rc.d/rc.dnsmasq

    (At this point you will have a really cool little DNS on your box but, that's not what we're going after here…)
    If you already had DNSMasq running on your box, start here:

  3. Edit the /etc/dnsmasq.conf file:
    CHANGE:
        #dhcp-range=192.168.0.50,192.168.0.150,255.255.255.0,12h
    TO:
        dhcp-range=1ST_POOL_IP,LAST_POOL_IP,12h  (using your correct IP range)
  4. If your DNSMasq box isn't also your gateway router, tell your DHCP clients who is the default gateway:
    CHANGE:
        #dhcp-option=3,1.2.3.4
    TO:
        dhcp-option=3,YOUR_GATEWAY_IP
  5. Start/restart DNSMasq:
    # /etc/rc.d/rc.dnsmasq restart

You should now have a working DHCP server.

Persistent IP addresses

To assign IP addresses based on a device's MAC address, edit the file /etc/dnsmasq.conf and add the following line for every device (using the correct MAC and IP address of course):

#EXAMPLE:
dhcp-host=11:22:33:44:55:66,192.168.1.61

NOTE: The IP address should be outside the DHCP address pool.

Sources

 howtos:network_services:dhcp_server_via_dnsmasq ()