DHCP without network access

[maze at cela.pl (Maciej Żenczykowski)]

> It does if you have a 'retry' value assigned in /etc/dhclient.conf, 
> however this file doesn't exist by default. I'm not sure what it does 
> without this file, but I'd gather from your experience, it's nothing 
> good.

I've read through dhclient.conf and I haven't found anything which would 
appear to govern what I think is happening - 'retry' value included. But 
maybe my interpretation is incorrect.

Here's what happened again:

a) client boot
b) get DHCP - success
c) a lot of time (days) passes with DHCP renews
d) --- DHCP server is broken ---
e) DHCP renewals fail (?)
f) DHCP lease times out (?)
g) IP address is deconfigured (?)
h) --- DHCP server is repaired ---
i) nothing happens...
while I would expect:
i) after sometime the 'n'th periodic DHCP retry finally reacquires an IP 
address...


[the retry statement has a default of 5 min, and even 24 hours haven't 
helped...]

Cheers,
MaZe.