Failure to acquire IP over DHCP

[Suvayu Ali]

Hi Marko and others,

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 06:24:58PM +0200, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
> 
> Let me guess --- on other outlets you get a real IP, 137.138.*.*, right? And 
> that works as expected?
> 

Yes, exactly.

> > > >To add to this, when other laptops
> > > >connect to my wall outlet, they  work properly.
> 
> Is the MAC address of your laptop registered with the CERN admins?

Yes, my MAC address is registered with CERN[1].

> In plain english, your machine first asks the server 137.138.16.6 for an IP 
> assignment (DHCPREQUEST). The server refuses (DHCPNAK). Then your machine asks 
> which dhcp servers are out there (DHCPDISCOVER), and asks anyone for an IP 
> assignment (DHCPREQUEST). Three servers respond: 137.138.16.6 and 137.138.17.6 
> refuse (DHCPNAK), while 192.168.0.1 accepts (DHCPACK) and gives you an 
> internal IP, which doesn't seem to be able to access the outside world.
> 

I did ask for help, but apparently we ran into a dead end.  However
later an admin got in touch with me personally, however it's night here
and he will probably continue tomorrow again.

> I am not sure if this is a misconfiguration or implemented on purpose, but the 
> CERN admins need to figure out why both of the two 137.138 dhcp servers have 
> refused to give you an IP. This is the problem on their end of the wall 
> outlet. Your machine seems to be configured correctly and also behaves 
> correctly.
> 

As far as I know, I should get an external IP.  So things like:

  $ ssh user@<external IP>

works.

> The guys at CERN usually know what they are doing, so the best bet would be to 
> ask them for help, they should certainly be able to fix this.
> 

There is no doubt they definitely know what they are doing very well,
the "official procedure" however is painfully slow[2].


Footnotes:

[1] And yes, I do work at CERN.

[2] Today is the 3rd day since I reported my issue.


-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.