Configuring the DHCP service agent

Neutron can provide DHCP services to the virtual machine instances using the neutron-dhcp-agent service. In this recipe, we will configure the DHCP agent to utilize dnsmasq—a free, lightweight DNS forwarder—and DHCP server that is used to provide DHCP services to networks. The DHCP agent is responsible for spawning and controlling dnsmasq processes for each network that leverages DHCP.

How to do it…

Follow these steps to configure the DHCP service agent:

1. Using the openstack-config command, edit the dhcp agent configuration file, and under the default section, set OVS as the interface driver:

   [root@neutron-node ~]# openstack-config --set /etc/neutron/dhcp_agent.ini DEFAULT interface_driver neutron.agent.linux.interface.OVSInterfaceDriver
   

2. Choose dnsmaq as the dhcp driver:

   [root@neutron-node ~]# openstack-config --set /etc/neutron/dhcp_agent.ini DEFAULT dhcp_driver  neutron.agent.linux.dhcp.Dnsmasq
   

3. Enable the use of network namespaces for DHCP services as follows...