KEA-DHCP6(8)

📦
version 3.0.4 · 23 versions
, in fedora 43

✨ KEA-DHCP6 ✨

okay so bestie, gather round, because this is the DHCPv6 server from the Kea family and it's literally the moment 💅 this is kea-dhcp6, section 8 of the manual (system administration commands, iykyk), and she's ready to hand out IPv6 addresses like they're friendship bracelets 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

kea-dhcp6 [-v] [-V] [-W] [-d] [-c config-file] [-t config-file] [-p
server-port-number] [-P client-port-number]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

The kea-dhcp6 daemon is the whole DHCPv6 server implementation. That's it. That's the vibe. She serves DHCPv6, no cap. 👑

🦋 ARGUMENTS 🦋

Here's the tea on every single flag, bestie. Nothing skipped, nothing left out, periodt:

  • -v — Shows you the Kea version. quick lil flex 💁
  • -V — Shows you the extended Kea version. more info, more iconic ✨
  • -W — Shows you the configuration report. receipts, basically 🧾
  • -d — Turns on debug mode, and it comes with extra verbosity. she will NOT stop talking (affectionate) 🗣️
  • -c config-file — Points at the configuration file holding the config for the DHCPv6 server. Heads up: it can also contain configuration entries for other Kea services too, so it's a shared lil journal 📓
  • -t config-file — Checks the configuration file and reports the first error if there is one. But real talk: not all parameters get fully checked. Specifically, service and control channel sockets are not opened, and hook libraries are not loaded. So it's a vibe check, not a full audit 👀
  • -T config-file — Also checks the config file and reports the first error if any, but she goes above and beyond what -t does. Extra checks include establishing database connections (for the lease backend, host reservations backend, configuration backend, and forensic logging backend), loading hook libraries, parsing hook-library configurations, etc. But — and this is important — she does not open UNIX or TCP/UDP sockets, and she does not open or rotate files, because any of those actions could interfere with a running process on the same machine. respect the boundaries bestie 🫶
  • -p server-port-number — Sets the server port number (1-65535) that the server listens on. This is useful for testing purposes only. 🧪
  • -P client-port-number — Sets the client port number (1-65535) that the server responds to. Also testing purposes only. same energy, different port 🧪

📚 DOCUMENTATION 📚

Kea ships with an extensive Kea Administrator Reference Manual that covers literally all aspects of running Kea — compilation, installation, configuration, configuration examples, and much, much more. Kea also has a Kea Messages Manual, which lists every possible message Kea can print along with a brief description of each one. Both docs come in various formats (.txt, .html, .pdf) with the Kea distribution. The Kea documentation lives at https://kea.readthedocs.io.

Kea source code is documented in the Kea Developer's Guide, available at https://reports.kea.isc.org/dev_guide/.

And the Kea project website is at https://kea.isc.org. 🌈

💌 MAILING LISTS AND SUPPORT 💌

There are two public mailing lists for the Kea project:

  • kea-users (kea-users at lists.isc.org) — for Kea users 🫂
  • kea-dev (kea-dev at lists.isc.org) — for Kea developers, prospective contributors, and other advanced users 🧠

Both lists are at https://lists.isc.org. The community provides best-effort support on both of them — no promises, just love 💕

ISC also provides professional support for Kea services. See https://www.isc.org/kea/ for the details.

🕰️ HISTORY 🕰️

The b10-dhcp6 daemon was first coded in June 2011 by Tomek Mrugalski. the origin story, we love to see it 😭

In mid-2014, Kea was decoupled from the BIND 10 framework and became a standalone DHCP server. The DHCPv6 server binary got renamed to kea-dhcp6. And Kea 1.0.0 was released in December 2015. glow-up complete 💅

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

✍️ AUTHOR ✍️

Internet Systems Consortium

2019-2025, Internet Systems Consortium

okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate it 💖 this was kea-dhcp6, version 3.0.4, dated Oct 05, 2026, straight from the Kea peeps at ISC. go forth and serve some DHCPv6 🦋✨ periodt.

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