BOOTP

BOOTP (Boot Protocol) may be used to boot remote computers over a network. BOOTP messages
are encapsulated inside UDP messages and therefore its requests and replies are forwarded by
routers. BOOTP is defined by RFCs 951 and 1542. The drawing below illustrates the data
encapsulatio

The diskless system reads its unique hardware address from its network interface card then sends a
BOOTP request. The table below shows the BOOTP package format from most significant bit to
least significant bit.

The BOOTP server uses port 67 and the BOOTP client uses port 68. The following is a brief
explanation of what happens when a remote client boots:

1. BOOTP request. The client sends a BOOTP request from 0.0.0.0.68 to 255.255.255.255.67
with its ethernet address and number of second's fields filled in.
2. BOOTP reply. The server responds with the client's IP address, the server's IP address (it's
own), and the IP address of a default gateway.
3. ARP request. The client issues an ARP to tell if the IP address it just received is being used.
It uses 0.0.0.0 as it's own address
4. ARP request. The client waits 0.5 seconds and repeats the same ARP request.
5. ARP request. The client waits another 0.5 seconds and repeats the ARP request with it's own
address as the senders address.
6. BOOTP request. The client waits 0.5 seconds and sends another BOOTP request with its own
IP address in the IP header
7. BOOTP reply. The server sends the same BOOTP reply it sent the last time.
8. ARP request. The client outputs an ARP request for the server hardware address
9. ARP reply. The server replies with its own ethernet address.
10. TFTP read request. The client sends a TFTP read request asking for its specified boot file.

1. DHCP was designed to replace the older BOOTP

2. BOOTP can only provide an IP to a computer while it is booting while DHCP can provide an IP
when the OS is already loaded
3. DHCP is primarily used to seamlessly provide IP addresses to computers while BOOTP is used to
configure and boot diskless computers or thin clients
4. BOOTP has a 30 day lease on the IP address as a default while DHCP only sets 8 as a default
5. DHCP can automatically rebind or renew their leases while BOOTP requires a system restart
 # of
Bit range Name Description
Bits
Tells if the message is a BOOTP request or reply. Request=1,
0-7 8 Op code
reply=2
Indicates the type of hardware (link level). A value of 6 indicates
8-15 8 Hardware type
ethernet
Hardware Tells the length in bytes of the hardware address number. Ethernet
16-23 8
address length addresses are 6 bytes long.
23-31 8 Hop count Initially set to 0. Incremented each time it is forwarded.
A random number set by the client and returned by the server.
32-63 32 Transaction ID
Used to match replies with requests
Number of The time since the client started trying to bootstrap. Used to tell if
64-79 16
seconds a backup BOOTP server should respond.
80-95 16 unused not used
Clients IP
96-127 32 The clients IP address. If a request, it is normally 0.0.0.0
address
IP address for
128-159 32 The server sets this in the reply message.
client
Server IP
160-191 32 Filled in by the server.
address
Gateway IP
192-223 32 Returned by the server.
address
Clients
224-351 128 hardware Provided by the client.
address
Server
352-1375 1024 A null terminated string optionally filled in by the server.
hostname
A fully qualified boot file name with path information, terminated
1376-3423 2048 Boot filename
with a null. Supplied by the server.
Vendor Used for various options to BOOTP including the subnet mask to
3424-4447 1024
information the client.