Kate Keahey writes on workspace-announce:

We are happy to announce the release TP1.2.2 of the Workspace Service. The new release DHCP-enables workspace network configuration mechanisms. In addition, we have streamlined the workspace logistics information, added unit tests, and extended the documentation.

For a detailed changelog, see the TP1.2.2 documentation:

http://workspace.globus.org/vm/TP1.2.2/index.html

You can download the new release from:

http://workspace.globus.org/downloads/index.html

This is an exciting release because we include an “invisible” method for configuring VMs as they are deployed. We added support for running a local DHCP server on hypervisor nodes that, before the VM is deployed, is dynamically keyed with the specific information intended for each of the workspace’s NICs (including IP, DNS, default route, hostname, etc).

Because we assign a unique MAC address to each NIC (and also dynamically install ebtables rules to make sure that the NIC can only use that MAC address), the DHCP server can be configured to respond with the exact information needed.

Further, the DHCP broadcast request is routed to the local DHCP server only, meaning that if your site already has a DHCP server running the request will not make it there (even if there is not a DHCP server already present this 1. prevents unnecessary noise on the network and 2. prevents other VMs from running their own DHCP servers and responding to the requests).

Support for ensuring only the intended IP address is used by each NIC was also added.

For more information, see the administrator guide’s DHCP overview and configuration section. That section also includes a link to a design document that goes into more depth.