Implement DHCP Class-identifier in the Linux kernel (Cernko, Patrick; Jochem, Rainer)

Most DHCP clients of today send a so called vendor-class-identifier which can be used to send vendor/class specific options (e.g. PXE boot parameters, IP phone servers, SunRay config options). The linux kernel build-in DHCP client was missing such a feature in the past: it did not sent any identifier even more not a configurable. Obviously, we wanted to sent the kernel additional parameters like NFS root filesystem location.

Rainer Jochem and I managed to develop a patch for the kernel, which not only instructs it to send such any vendor-class-identifier but also make it configurable to distinguish different netboot items by simply adding a corresponding class name on the boot command line.

The patch was reviewed by Patrick McHardy. Thanks to him, it is now integrated in linux 2.6.25 and higher.

linux-DHCPClassIdentifier.diff