[dhcp-agent-commits] dhcp-agent/doc introduction.texi,1.4,1.5

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Update of /cvsroot/dhcp-agent/dhcp-agent/doc
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Modified Files:
	introduction.texi 
Log Message:
added information on timeout-threshold and retries

Index: introduction.texi
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RCS file: /cvsroot/dhcp-agent/dhcp-agent/doc/introduction.texi,v
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  server notifying it that the lease is no longer in use. The client,
  also, unconfigures the host system its running on.
+ 
+ @section Other Information Worth Noting.
+ 
+ @subsection  On Timeout Thresholds And Retries
+ 
+ The dhcp-agent suite never allows the user to specify exact timeout
+ and retries for any of its operations. This is intentional. Instead,
+ the user can specify an upper timeout period called a threshold and a
+ retry counter which is decremented per amount of times the threshold
+ is reached.
+ 
+ For example, in the client configuration you can specify the
+ @var{arp-retries} and @var{arp-timeout-threshold}. If you set the
+ retries to two, and the threshold to fifteen the client, when
+ performing an ARP operation will begin by transmitting the first
+ datagram, and then wait up to four seconds (default hard coded
+ setting: see dhcp-libutil.h). Then if this timeout is reached it will
+ double the timeout, add a small random amount to it, and try
+ again. When the timeout has reached fifteen seconds, it will consider
+ the operation to have timed out completely, and decrement its retry
+ counter. Then it starts again.
+ 
+ A setting of one for retries, and ten for a timeout threshold will not
+ cause the client to just try once, but keep trying for up to ten
+ seconds using the back-off algorithm mentioned above. This algorithm
+ is mentioned in RFC2131 and implemented for compliance. It also makes
+ good sense for ethernet networks with high collisions.