In situations where you need to restrict the use of specific characters in a NIOS-X Server name for DDNS updates, you can configure a NIOS-X Server name rewrite policy. Such policy accepts certain characters and replaces others in NIOS-X Server names specified in IPv4 DHCP requests. When you create a NIOS-X Server name rewrite policy, you enter a regular expression matching invalid characters that the application replaces in the NIOS-X Server name. You also specify a character that the application uses to replace invalid characters.
When you enable a NIOS-X Server name rewrite policy, the application replaces NIOS-X Server names with the newly translated NIOS-X Server name when it issues DHCP leases and sends DDNS updates for IPv4 DHCP clients. Before you enable a NIOS-X Server name rewrite policy, consider the following:
You must enable DDNS updates before the NIOS-X Server name rewrite policy can take effect.
The policy supports only IPv4 DHCP clients.
If DHCP option 81 support is enabled and updating DDNS is in the request, the application sends updates for A records directly to the DNS server and DHCP only updates the PTR record. When this happens, there can be a mismatch in the NIOS-X Server name between the A and PTR records.
Changes made to a NIOS-X Server name rewrite policy apply only to subsequent DDNS updates.
When an IPv4 DHCP client requests an IP address, it includes its NIOS-X Server name in DHCP option 12. If you enable a NIOS-X Server name rewrite policy, the application uses the newly translated NIOS-X Server name when it issues a lease to the client.
The client can also include a FQDN in option 81, in which it instructs the server whether to perform DDNS updates. If the client sends a FQDN in option 81, the application replaces the entire FQDN based on the policy. For example, if the FQDN in option 81 is dev.bldg12.corpxyz.com, the application replaces invalid characters in the entire FQDN even though the NIOS-X Server name can be dev or dev.bldg12. For example, if your NIOS-X Server name rewrite policy specifies valid characters as a-z and the replacement character is -, the newly translated FQDN is dev.bldg--.corpxyz.com. For information about client FQDN in option 81, see Enabling DDNS for IPv4 Clients#About the Client FQDN Option.
Note that when multiple IPv4 DHCP clients specify NIOS-X Server names that map to the same translated NIOS-X Server name, the application allocates leases to all clients, but it only sends DDNS updates to the first client request. When it tries to update DNS for subsequent clients, the updates fail. You can override this policy at the DNS server level.