DHCP DORA Explained with a Real Packet Capture
Discover, Offer, Request, Ack. You can recite DORA in your sleep, and it still will not help you the day a client comes up with a 169.254 address and the server insists the pool is fine. What helps is
DHCP
DHCP on Cisco IOS XE and Linux, from the four-packet lease to relay agents and snooping. Articles tagged DHCP cover pool design, ip helper-address, option decoding from real captures, and the failures that leave clients unaddressed.