1.. _intro:
2
3************
4Introduction
5************
6
7Kea is the next generation of DHCP software, developed by Internet Systems Consortium (ISC). It
8supports both the DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 protocols along with their extensions,
9e.g. prefix delegation and dynamic updates to DNS.
10
11This guide covers Kea version |release|.
12
13For information about supported platforms see :ref:`platforms`.
14
15.. include:: platforms.rst
16
17.. _kea_software:
18
19Kea Software
20============
21
22Kea is a modular DHCP server solution. This modularity is accomplished using multiple
23cooperating processes which, together, provide the server functionality.
24The following software is included with Kea:
25
26-  ``keactrl`` — This tool starts, stops, reconfigures, and reports the status of
27   the Kea servers.
28
29-  ``kea-dhcp4`` — The DHCPv4 server process. This process responds to
30   DHCPv4 queries from clients.
31
32-  ``kea-dhcp6`` — The DHCPv6 server process. This process responds to
33   DHCPv6 queries from clients.
34
35-  ``kea-dhcp-ddns`` — The DHCP Dynamic DNS process. This process acts
36   as an intermediary between the DHCP servers and external DNS servers. It
37   receives name update requests from the DHCP servers and sends DNS
38   update messages to the DNS servers.
39
40-  ``kea-admin`` — This is a useful tool for database backend maintenance
41   (creating a new database, checking versions, upgrading, etc.).
42
43-  ``kea-lfc`` — This process removes redundant information from the
44   files used to provide persistent storage for the memfile database
45   backend. While it can be run standalone, it is normally run as and
46   when required by the Kea DHCP servers.
47
48-  ``kea-ctrl-agent`` — The Kea Control Agent (CA) is a daemon that exposes
49   a RESTful control interface for managing Kea servers.
50
51-  ``kea-netconf`` - kea-netconf is an agent that provides a
52   YANG/NETCONF interface for configuring Kea.
53
54-  ``kea-shell`` — This simple text client uses the REST interface to
55   connect to the Kea Control Agent.
56
57-  ``perfdhcp`` — This is a DHCP benchmarking tool which simulates multiple
58   clients to test both DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 server performance.
59
60The tools and modules are covered in full detail in this guide. In
61addition, manual pages are also provided in the default installation.
62
63Kea also provides C++ libraries and programmer interfaces for DHCP.
64These include detailed developer documentation and code examples.
65