Airport DHCP issue

[arobase]

I have searched for this issue and have not been found another thread addressing this. I apologize if I missed it.
Here is my problem. I have seen this in 3 environments with different variables. Any help would be appreciated,

Join airport network. Icon in menu bar shows I am on the NW. But no IP address is assigned. If I open Airport Utility I see the airport and within seconds I get an IP address. If this does not work then I have to restart, either the client or the airport and then an IP address is assigned. I have tried turning airport connection on and off on the client, no luck. I have had reports, and experienced this issue in 3 separate networks. Each slightly different. In some the airport extreme was the DHCP server acting as a router. In others it was in bridge mode passing DHCP through from OS X server. In some the AE is running 7.1 or 7.1.1 or 7.2.1. In some the express was connected over ethernet extending the network in others it is extending the network via WDS. If the express is connected via ethernet it maintains an IP, if it is connected via WDS it may lose it’s IP. Only wireless clients are affected. Wired clients work fine. Only commonality in all situations is the presence of both a airport extreme and an airport express.

I have rebuilt 2 of the 3 networks I have seen this on from the ground up after resetting all base stations to factory defaults. The issue resurfaces within days.

Anyone else experiencing this? Any ideas on how to fix it? Thanks in advance for just reading this thread.

[abeness]

Lo and behold, I was just googling about this issue. In my case I’m running a mobile MacBook lab of summer 2006 MBs in a middle school. We’re using D-Link DWL-3200AP access points, which were absolutely bullet-proof all last year, even for network home folders. About a week after an unfortunately-timed server problem and rebuild just at the beginning of the school year, but (I think) identical server network DHCP configuration, the MacBooks are suddenly unable to grab an IP address over Airport. Their configuration has not changed. Server went from 10.4.9 to 10.4.10, however.

The DHCP log (system.log) on the server shows the correct MAC addresses of the interfaces being discovered, but while the MB Ethernet interface (en0, successful) shows up as

>>>>
Sep 7 15:33:21 shin bootpd[19790]: DHCP REQUEST [en0]: 1,0:19:e3:42:79:25
Sep 7 15:33:21 shin bootpd[19790]: ACK sent NEW-MB-SD-IMAGE 10.91.0.94 pktsize 300
<<<< the Airport interface (en1, unsuccessful) shows up as >>>>
Sep 7 15:32:57 shin bootpd[19790]: DHCP DISCOVER [en0]: 1,0:1c:b3:b3:3a:e8
Sep 7 15:32:57 shin bootpd[19790]: OFFER sent 10.91.0.97 pktsize 300
<<<< Note that en0 shows up as DHCP REQUEST/ACK sent with hostname as expected, while en1 shows up as DHCP DISCOVER/OFFER sent with never a request or ACK, even after a server restart (stopping/restarting DHCP had no effect). To compare, successful static IP addressing via DHCP works--meaning I set up a static IP for this Airport MAC address on the server side: >>>>
Sep 7 16:36:48 shin bootpd[602]: DHCP DISCOVER [en0]: 1,0:17:f2:42:77:91
Sep 7 16:36:48 shin bootpd[602]: OFFER sent Abe Airport 10.91.0.82 pktsize 300
Sep 7 16:36:49 shin bootpd[602]: DHCP REQUEST [en0]: 1,0:17:f2:42:77:91
Sep 7 16:36:49 shin bootpd[602]: ACK sent Abe Airport 10.91.0.82 pktsize 300
<<<< I have to up the logging on the laptop side to see what's going on there. I sure don't want to be assigning static IPs to 40+ laptops... But WAIT! Just after turning Airport on on that statically-assigned laptop (Abe Airport), I was able to get an IP address on the problem MB I've been talking about. I'd be rather surprised if the fact that I'm statically assigning an IP (based on MAC address) at the beginning of the range has an effect on automatic assignment later in the range, so maybe it has something to do with me turning off IPv6 on both the server en0 and on the MB's interfaces. I just tried another MB on which I did NOT turn off IPv6, and it too successfully acquired an IP addy, so maybe it's enough to turn off IPv6 on the server side. Hmmm. I'll see how it goes next week with more testing (the weekend beckons, and reading logfiles just doesn't hold a candle to it!) and report back if problems remain. For now I'll hope that turning off IPv6 on the server NIC over which DHCP is served did the trick. (From my mouth to the server's en0!) Abe

[abeness]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: abeness[/u][p]I’ll see how it goes next week with more testing (the weekend beckons, and reading logfiles just doesn’t hold a candle to it!) and report back if problems remain. For now I’ll hope that turning off IPv6 on the server NIC over which DHCP is served did the trick. (From my mouth to the server’s en0!)[/p][/QUOTE]

So much for that. No IP address is acquired over Airport on 2006 or 2007 MacBooks. My MacBook Pro is not affected–it acquires an IP address. I also can’t assign a static IP via the static maps function based on MAC address, which is too bad, because it means that the only solution is static IP assignment on each machine. I’m off to do more investigation. Any ideas will be welcome!

Abe

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