Patent ID: 7865591

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for facilitating DHCP diagnostic functionality, comprising: identifying misconfigurations to a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) option/suboption configuration of a DHCP agent between a DHCP server and a client of the DHCP server; confirming proper address concentration configuration with respect to the DHCP agent; snooping on address assignments from the DHCP server to the client of the DHCP server to determine unauthorized ones of said address assignments; and interpreting DHCP-related configuration information to verify that said configuration information translates into a correct set of services for a client thereof, wherein said configuration information includes information relating to misconfiguration to the DHCP option/suboption configuration, information relating to proper address concentration configuration with respect to the DHCP agent, and information relating to address assignments from the DHCP server to the client of the DHCP server; wherein identifying misconfigurations to the DHCP option configurations includes: a DHCP Link probe function utilizing a DHCP leasequery function for requesting DHCP agent information from a binding database maintained by the DHCP server; receiving from the DHCP server said DHCP agent information; determining that said received DHCP agent information differs from DHCP agent information previously received from the DHCP server thereby discovering misconfiguration of said received DHCP agent information.