Kea DHCP

ISC’s Kea is the most widely deployed open source DHCP server software.

1. Kea is open source, and runs on open source Linux and UNIX operating systems. Kea is developed in the open on ISC’s GitLab; we welcome you to open issues and submit patches there. Kea runs on most Linux and Unix platforms, as well as MacOS. If you don’t want to build from our source distribution, we also provide a repository of pre-built packages for most popular operating systems.

2. Kea is a modern, high performance implementation. Kea is multi-threaded, and when configured for efficient operation, it can be performant enough for a large-scale, short-lease duration environment, which is the most demanding scenario.

3. Kea has a powerful, well-documented REST API. Kea uses a JSON configuration file that can be modified remotely via set commands and reloaded without stopping and restarting the server.

4. There is a very useful web-based graphical dashboard. Kea now has a graphical dashboard for monitoring multiple Kea servers. This system, called Stork, uses agents deployed on the Kea servers to relay information to a centralized management platform, providing the administrator with an easy-to-use quick view of system status and activity.

5. The modular component design is extensible. The Kea distribution includes separate daemons for a DHCPv4 server, a DHCPv6 server, and a dynamic DNS (DDNS) module. Many optional features are enabled with dynamically-loaded “Hooks Modules,” which you need run only if you are using them. You can write your own hooks modules (in C++) or try some of the hooks we offer.

6. Kea is designed to integrate with existing systems. Kea allows you to separate the data from the execution environment, enabling new deployment options. Your network data - leases, host reservation definitions, and most configuration data - can be located separately from the DHCP server itself, using a Kea “backend.”

Kea supports two database backends; MySQL and PostgreSQL. Besides the obvious benefits (you avoid JSON formatting errors, you can quickly and easily mine the data for other purposes) using a database backend enables multiple Kea servers to share the data. Potential benefits:

• A shared lease database can provide an alternative strategy for resilience. (See this Kea HA strategies comparison)
• A host reservation database, used with the host_cmds hook, allows remote management of host reservations via Stork, and permits multiple Kea servers to use a shared host reservations database.
• A configuration database, while currently not supported by Stork, allows reuse of some configuration elements, such as subnets, across multiple Kea servers. This can make it much easier to add new Kea servers.

How is the Kea DHCP server different from the older ISC DHCP?

ISC used to develop and distribute another DHCP software system, ISC DHCP. Kea includes all the most-requested features, is far newer, and is designed for a more modern network environment than ISC DHCP, which has been End of Life since 2022. Users of ISC DHCP may find these resources helpful in migrating their DHCP server deployments to the Kea server.

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