dhclient: "Address already in use"

Linux howto's, compile information, information on whatever we learned on working with linux, MACOs and - of course - Products of the big evil....
Post Reply
User avatar
^rooker
Site Admin
Posts: 1484
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2003 8:39 pm

dhclient: "Address already in use"

Post by ^rooker »

[PROBLEM]
Using devil-linux, I wanted to refresh the dhcp lease by running "dhclient eth0" and I got the following errormessage:
Listening on LPF/eth0/00:30:1b:b8:f8:e1
Sending on LPF/eth0/00:30:1b:b8:f8:e1
Address already in use

Please make sure there is no other dhcp server
running and that there's no entry for dhcp or
bootp in /etc/inetd.conf. Also make sure you
are not running HP JetAdmin software, which
includes a bootp server.
Additionally, dhclient dropped the existing IP giving me a hard time, since I was connecting remotely (of course I expected things to work flawlessly and to be able to reconnect after the refresh).


[SOLUTION]
"Address already in use" meant, that another dhcp-client process was already running, because Devil Linux uses "dhcpcd" by default.

There are 2 solutions:
a) "killall dhcpcd" and then restart dhcpcd (just run the command "dhcpcd")

b) "killall dhcpcd" and then run "dhclient". BUT: Be careful with this option, since dhclient uses its own config file /etc/dhclient.conf which might not be configured properly if you run into this problem.
Jumping out of an airplane is not a basic instinct. Neither is breathing underwater. But put the two together and you're traveling through space!
Post Reply