Solaris DHCP

Solaris DHCP daemon is started automatically during bootup if file /etc/dhcp.interface exists for at lest one interface Only interfaces with a corresponding /etc/dhcp.interface file are automatically configured during boot.

Like DNS there can be primary and secondary DHCP servers but secondary DHCP servers are not a requirement and they are not that common. Primary and secondary DHCP servers must have access to the exact same data. Copies cannot be used. This can be achieved by via NIS and NFS. Both run in.dhcpd daemon:
primary server assign IP addresses to clients. The IP address range for DHCP zone is defined during the installation. A primary DHCP server assigns an IP address to any client which requested a new configuration. Assigned IP-addresses always belong to the DHCP zone for which the server responsible. Multiple primary servers can exist on the same network as long as each server is responsible for a different DHCP address range.

Configuration for the DHCP server daemon is stored in the /etc/inet/dhcpsvc.conf file.

The information about DHCP address range and allocated addresses is stored in two tables: dhcptab and dhcp_network
dhcptab file contains all the information that clients can obtain from the DHCP server. The DHCP server scans the file each time it starts. The DHCP protocol defines a number of standard items of information that can be passed to clients. These items are referred to as parameters, symbols, or options. Options are defined in the DHCP protocol by numeric codes and text labels, but without values. For example, some commonly used standard options are shown in the following table.
dhcp_network
secondary server only can confirms existing configurations previously supplied by a primary server when the primary server is not available. Every primary server can also act as a secondary server.

There are two alterative ways (command line based and GUI-based) to configure DHCP servers (and BOOTP relay servers):
Command line configuration using dhcpconfig. Can be used in scripts. Does not check the validity of user input as it is entered. The dhcpconfig utility is the fastest way to configure the server. It also checks the validity of user input as it is entered.
GUI-based configuration using dhcpmgr (DHCP manager). The dhcpmgr utility speeds up the configuration process by omitting prompts for nonessential server options by using default values for them. You can change nonessential options after the initial configuration.

Both utilities permit setting of startup options, configure the DHCP service database type (binary or text) and location, as well as initialize the dhcptab and dhcp_network tables for the DHCP zone that the server controls.
/etc/inet/dhcpsvc.conf File

The /etc/inet/dhcpsvc.conf file contains configuration information and typically is populated using utilities that we mentioned above, although nothing prevents you for editing it manually. It the configuration file is not present, then the server does not run DHCP daemon. The content is a typical Unix-style configuration file with keyword-value pairs:

cat /etc/inet/dhcpsvc.conf

DAEMON_ENABLED=TRUE
RUN_MODE=server
RESOURCE=SUNWfiles
PATH=/var/dhcp
CONVER=1
VERBOSE=TRUE
ICMP_VERIFY=TRUE
INTERFACES=hme0,qfe0
UPDATE_TIMEOUT=15
LOGGING_FACILITY=7
BOOTP_COMPAT=automatic