# facebook/dhcplb

dhcplb is Facebook's implementation of a load balancer for DHCP.

Repository: https://github.com/facebook/dhcplb
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/dhcplb
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-19T14:23:38+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 76/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3701, "days_push": 14, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1060, forks 86 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:25.680998+00:00)

## What it is
dhcplb is Facebook's production DHCP v4/v6 load balancer and relayer, also usable as a multithreaded DHCP server framework. It balances DHCP traffic across server pools at datacenter scale, replacing unbalanced Anycast+ECMP approaches.

## Use cases
- load balance DHCP requests across multiple DHCP servers
- relay DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 traffic in a datacenter
- run a scalable multithreaded DHCP server with backend service calls
- A/B test new DHCP server builds behind a relay layer
- assign IPs to bare-metal machines during provisioning
- avoid unbalanced DHCP load from Anycast+ECMP

## When to choose
- you operate DHCP at large scale and need balanced traffic across server pools
- you need a DHCP server that can call external services for IP assignment
- you want to A/B test DHCP server implementations
- existing relayers lack load balancing features you need

## When to avoid
- you need broadcast (v4) or multicast (v6) DHCP request handling
- you run a small network where a standard DHCP server suffices
- you need a turnkey DHCP solution without custom configuration

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: active
- function: networking, proxy, load-testing, http-server
- domain: networking, infrastructure-as-code, self-hosted, microservices
- platform: go, self-hosted
- tags: dhcp, dhcpv4, dhcpv6, load-balancer, relay, datacenter, bare-metal-provisioning, linux, docker

## Member repositories
- facebook/dhcplb (main) score 76

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:25.680998+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:56:56.126599+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/facebook/dhcplb (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:25.680998+00:00, sha 5e0c7591fd09)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.