A fundamental requirement for most of the IP security features described in this section is to configure DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) snooping and trusted DHCP server.
DHCP snooping enhances security by filtering untrusted DHCP messages and by building and maintaining a DHCP bindings database. Trusted DHCP server also enhances security by forwarding DHCP packets from only configured trusted servers within your network.
The DHCP bindings database contains the IP address, MAC Address, VLAN (Virtual LAN) ID, and port number of the untrusted interface or client. If the switch receives a DHCP ACK message and the IP address does not exist in the DHCP bindings database, the switch creates an entry in the DHCP bindings database. If the switch receives a DHCP RELEASE, NAK or DECLINE message and the IP address exists in the DHCP bindings database, the switch removes the entry.
You can enable DHCP snooping on a per port, per VLAN basis and trusted DHCP server on a per-vlan basis. If configured for DHCP snooping, the switch snoops DHCP packets on the indicated ports and builds a DHCP bindings database of IP address and MAC address bindings from the received packets. If configured for trusted DHCP server, the switch forwards only DHCP packets from the trusted servers. The switch drops DHCP packets from other DHCP snooping-enabled ports.
In addition, to prevent rogue DHCP servers from farming out IP addresses, you can optionally configure a specific port or set of ports as trusted ports. Trusted ports do not block traffic; rather, the switch forwards any DHCP server packets that appear on trusted ports. When configured to do so, the switch drops packets from DHCP snooping-enabled ports and causes one of the following user-configurable actions: disables the port temporarily, disables the port permanently, blocks the violating MAC address temporarily, blocks the violating MAC address permanently, and so on.
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