Efficiency of DHCP server

[mke]

Hi all,

I was wondering how efficient is pfsense dhcp server or what hardware would be needed to accomplish sth like that

I want to make sure that when I use pfsense with my wifi system(light browsing), dhcp will work flawlessly, fast and will be able to withstand 300 or 400 users trying to join the network almost at once, lets say within few minutes.

For example I noticed that when I use Cisco 2901, it will not do that job quite fast, it is usually choking for several minutes in above situations.

[Harvy66]

I assume very little CPU and network is needed. I just did a release+renew on my desktop with Wireshark running, and the entire process took 2ms

DHCP Discover: 4.7292
DHCP Offer: 4.7303
DHCP Request: 4.7305
DHCP ACK: 4.7312

Assuming perfect linear scaling, my box could handle 500/sec. It is a beefy quad core 3.2ghz CPU, but it's down clocked to 200mhz nearly all the time. Not a good test, I know, but I don't see DHCP being that intensive.