Lighthouse
Lighthouse is a custom, enterprise-grade DHCP server (DHCPv4 + DHCPv6), written from scratch in Rust. It’s RFC-compliant, built to run 24/7 without crashing on native Ubuntu and native Windows, and ships with a modern web UI. It uses ISC Kea as a conformance reference, not a dependency.
Why it exists
Section titled “Why it exists”Existing DHCP servers force a tradeoff — Unix-only (weak native Windows), C/C++ (crash risk), or no modern management UI. Lighthouse is memory-safe, single-binary, native on both OSes, with a first-class web UI.
Architecture
Section titled “Architecture”Two processes for fault isolation:
lighthoused— the DHCP engine.lighthouse-mgmtd— management, REST API, and web UI.
Plus lighthouse (CLI), lighthouse-ddnsd (dynamic DNS), and lighthouse-tftpd (PXE).
Who uses it
Section titled “Who uses it”| Role | Can do |
|---|---|
| Network admin | Subnets, pools, options, config, engine restart |
| Operator | Leases, logs, reservations |
| Viewer | Read-only dashboard |