Is ISC DHCP going away?

[AG_2023]

Is ISC DHCP going away? What is the replacement? kea or Dnsmasq?

Thanks

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Yes.

Both.

[AG_2023]

Yes.

Both.

So do I need to configure both kea and Dnsmasq just to replace ISC DHCP?

Never mind, I found the answer in docs. Dnsmasq is recommended for small networks and is the most recent Opnsense offering. I will switch to using it as it seems to be a long term option.

[meyergru]

I would wait for 25.1.7 if I were you. There are some glitches you probably do not want to research and many of them may be fixed until then.

There is no urgent need to switch at this time.

[johnmcallister]

What is the approximate timeline for when ISC DHCP is going to be removed from OPNsense?


1 quarter?  1 year?  5 years?

[Patrick M. Hausen]

It's all in the docs and in the announcements, folks ...

It's going to be relegated to a plugin instead of core probably in 26.1.

[GhostNetwork]

So if we want to keep isc we can?

[Patrick M. Hausen]

For now, yes of course.

Infinitely - probably not. Someone has to maintain that plugin. What if there are security issues?

The project is EOL upstream, there is no way around replacing it at some time in the future. OTOH there is absolutely no need to rush to it *now*.

[AG_2023]

My network is dead simple. No VLAN, no guest network, just one LAN interface /24 subnet, no IPv6, one WAN interface. I have switched to Dnsmasq and Unbound combination as per the documentation example.

https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/dnsmasq.html#configuration-examples

See what happens...

Thanks for all the wonderful replies and clarification !!!

[franco]

ISC DHCP will move to plugins in 26.1 next year. Probably stay there for at least 2-3 years.


Cheers,
Franco

[wrobelda]

Is there gonna be a migration path? Say, for the static mappings at least? Or is there maybe some script already?

[Monviech (Cedrik)]

Not yet, there is no immediate need to migrate just yet. Maybe we have something ready in the next major version that can export the reservations from ISC.

[PhoenixRider]

I haven't had good experiences with either Kea or DNSmasq so far.

Recently, I noticed with Kea that WiFi Call only works on the first WiFi subnet of my Wi-Fi subnets (I have three). This is the parent interface. For the other two Wi-Fi subnets, I use VLANs that use the Wi-Fi parent interface.

After switching back to ISC, WiFi Call worked with all three Wi-Fi subnets. I understand that ISC is EOL and that security vulnerabilities will emerge over time, but ISC worked absolutely flawlessly for me, and I find it very unfortunate that it is no longer being developed.

[Monviech (Cedrik)]

But have you found out /why/ the Wifi calling did not work anymore?

That's the information that is needed to fix something and improve the new alternatives for everybody with the same issues.

[PhoenixRider]

But have you found out /why/ the Wifi calling did not work anymore?

That's the information that is needed to fix something and improve the new alternatives for everybody with the same issues.

No, i don't know why. Maybe KEA is filtering some Features. Also with DNSmasq WiFi Call doesn't work on all three WLAN-Subnets. On this point, it's very frustrating. I would like to continue to rely on OPNsense in the distant future, but if the DHCP alternatives don't work as smoothly as ISC currently does and ISC will no longer be available as a plugin at some point, things will look really bad.