dhcpsrv

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A tiny portable DHCP server for the laptop of a storage/server engineer. One double-click — pick a NIC — done. Live table of clients, ping status, packet counters. No install, no Python required on the target machine.

Built for the “plug the cable in, watch a BMC pop up with an IP” workflow during firmware updates, recovery, and benchmarks.

Made by engelgardt.

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Download

Grab the latest release: releases page. The asset is dhcpsrv-portable-vX.Y.Z.zip (~12 MB).

Run

1. Unzip anywhere.
2. Double-click dhcpsrv.exe.
3. Accept the UAC prompt (admin is needed to bind UDP/67 and reconfigure the NIC).
4. Pick the network adapter wired to your server or switch — that's the only question.
5. Ctrl+C to stop. You'll be asked whether to revert the NIC to DHCP.

Defaults (no other prompts)

Parameter	Value
Server IP	10.10.10.1/24
Pool	10.10.10.2 .. 10.10.10.51 (50 addresses)
Lease	7200 s (2 hours — survives long stress tests)
TFTP option	server IP (BMC will see your Tftpd32 immediately)

What's on screen

┌─ dhcpsrv v1.0.0  made by engelgardt ────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Server: 10.10.10.1/255.255.255.0  Pool: 10.10.10.2–10.10.10.51 …        │
│ Leases: 3/50  Pkts: 47  DISCOVER: 12  REQUEST: 11  RELEASE: 0           │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
┌─ Clients ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  # │ IP           │ Hostname     │ MAC               │ Last seen │ Ping │
│  1 │ 10.10.10.2   │ server-01    │ a0:c5:f2:13:57:46 │ 17:42:18  │  OK  │
│  2 │ 10.10.10.3   │ server-02    │ 70:b3:d5:11:22:33 │ 17:42:21  │  --  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
┌─ Events ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [17:42:18] DISCOVER a0:c5:f2:13:57:46 → OFFER 10.10.10.2                │
│ [17:42:18] REQUEST  a0:c5:f2:13:57:46 → ACK   10.10.10.2                │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Typical scenarios

• Server with shared LOM — one cable into the BMC/host port, BMC and the host OS both get IPs from this DHCP.
• 8-port switch — laptop on one port, up to 7 servers on the rest; the 50-address pool covers everyone.
• Direct cable into a dedicated Mgmt port — single client (the BMC).

Compatibility

• Windows 10 / 11.
• Filters out wireless / VPN / virtual adapters from the picker (Wi-Fi, Cisco AnyConnect, Hyper-V, VMware, VirtualBox, TAP/TUN, WireGuard, OpenVPN, Tailscale, ZeroTier).
• NIC names with spaces or non-ASCII characters are quoted correctly for netsh.

Notes

• Nothing is installed on your machine. Delete the folder to remove.
• The UAC prompt appears every time. (If you want it gone on your machine, wire dhcpsrv.exe through a Scheduled Task with “Run with highest privileges” and launch via schtasks /run /tn dhcpsrv.)
• If Tftpd32 has its DHCP module enabled, disable it — UDP/67 is then taken.
• Lease defaults to 7200 s; the client renews at half lease. If you want it effectively forever, the source supports 2147483647 — rebuild from source if you really need it.

Build from source

python -m pip install rich pyinstaller
python -m PyInstaller --onefile --uac-admin --console --name dhcpsrv dhcpsrv_app.py

License

MIT — see LICENSE.