Networking without Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server in Ethernet and Wireless Local Area Network

A Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server is a well-known server deployed at a network to manage Internet Protocol (IP) addresses temporarily rentable to hosts in the network. Besides, a DHCP server provides hosts with important network information such as the subnet mask and the gateway IP address. However, a DHCP server has many drawbacks and should not be considered necessary in each network. If no DHCP server exists in a network to serve hosts and no network administrator helps users manually configure the hosts, currently no practical solution can make the hosts access networks.In this paper, Automatic Host Configuration Mechanism (AHCM) is proposed to make a host access Ethernet and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) without a DHCP server. AHCM can automatically locate IP addresses usable to hosts and find network information in a transparent way without any user interference. Working like protocol software inside an Operating System (OS), AHCM has high compatibility because of neither modifying any application nor deploying a third party server in a network. Most importantly, AHCM does not have drawbacks in a DHCP server. AHCM is implemented in the protocol stack on Windows XP and tested in several experiments to identify its overheads and performances.