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Bug Forces Android Devices Off Princeton Campus Network
pmdubs writes "A major bug in the Android DHCP implementation has forced network administrators to (effectively) ban the use of such devices on the Princeton campus. In the last few months, Princeton has had to kick more than 400 Android devices off the campus network for using IP addresses well beyond the allotted DHCP lease (to the detriment of other users), sending invalid DHCPREQUEST messages after lease expiration, and a variety of other wacky behaviors. The link provides a clearly documented explanation of the buggy behavior, as does this largely neglected bug report. Without doubt, this buggy behavior is affecting other, less vigilant networks, and disrupting Wi-Fi traffic for Android and non-Android devices alike."
Why in the name of all that is GNU would Android re-implement a DHCP client when every Linux system since forever has had good DHCP client support already there?
Did Google decide to implement their own IP layer entirely?
oh, google will fix it. But there will be carriers who will never roll those fixes out to their users.
Apple had a similar issue:
http://www.net.princeton.edu/announcements/ipad-iphoneos32-stops-renewing-lease-keeps-using-IP-address.html
At this point, one has to wonder what Princeton is doing on their network that they keep uncovering such bugs.
At this point, one has to wonder what Princeton is doing on their network that they keep uncovering such bugs.
Princeton's network was for the longest time very old. We had shared 10mb over cat3 cable to most of the campus. To keep things working, the network was heavily monitored and anything that did not belong was promptly disconnected.
Fast forward to now. We have a modern network that can handle some problems, but the motioning form the dark days still continues. Because of this heavy monitoring IT can see problems with devices that probably no one on earth sees.
Yes the iPhone and iPod both had the same issues, but Apple fix them eventually. I hope the Google will do the same.
From the description in the bug report, it sounds like certain services (dhcp client I should think) are halted or disabled. It seems to restart when web browsing activity is initiated. This seems to indicate that it was halted when the machine was initially locked -- my guess would be to save battery. After all, DHCPing all the time would burn battery.
I wonder what the best solution would be? When locking to release the DHCP lease before suspending the DHCP client? I wonder if my Vibrant has the same issue?
Actually, the report specifically states that this bug should not be classified as a problem with DHCP when sleeping. The Princeton guy did extensive testing and found that even with active use, the device fails to renew the lease and continues using the IP after the lease has expired.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
iPrism (my company's nanny of choice), blocks the site as an annonymiser. And what the hell kinda URL *is* net.princeton.edu.nyud.net anyway?
Here's the link to Princeton's web site: http://www.net.princeton.edu/android/android-stops-renewing-lease-keeps-using-IP-address-11236.html
And it appears the iPad has a similar problem: http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2010/04/16/princeton-explains-network-issues-for-ipad-users-and-has-banned-the-devices/
Odd that they're both doing something so similar. Wonder if they use the same base DHCP code.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.