Patent ID: 7693933

Claim:
An apparatus hosting a Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) relay agent, comprising: a network interface that is coupled to a network for communicating one or more packet flows therewith; a processor; one or more stored sequences of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform: at the Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) relay agent: creating a DHCP information request message; sending the DHCP information request message to the network; receiving, in response to the DHCP information request message, a DHCP acknowledgment message comprising a DHCP configuration option field that contains a plurality of network addresses of two or more DHCP servers in the network; storing the plurality of network addresses of the DHCP servers; receiving a DHCP discovery message from a DHCP client on a host coupled to the apparatus; sending the DHCP discovery message to one or more of the DHCP servers identified by the stored network addresses; receiving one or more offers of network addresses from the one or more DHCP servers; sending to the DHCP client a DHCP response message comprising one of the offers of network addresses.