---
name: "dhclient.leases"
section: "5"
platform: "freebsd"
package: "base"
version: "16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79"
release: "FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27)"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/dhclient.leases"
---

# dhclient.leases(5)

DHCP client lease database

## NAME

**dhclient.leases** – DHCP client lease database

## DESCRIPTION

The Internet Software Consortium DHCP client keeps a persistent database of leases that it has acquired that are still valid. The database is a free-form ASCII file containing one valid declaration per lease. If more than one declaration appears for a given lease, the last one in the file is used. The file is written as a log, so this is not an unusual occurrence.

The lease file is named *dhclient.leases*.*IFNAME*, where *IFNAME* represents the network interface the DHCP client acquired the lease on. For example, if [dhclient(8)](/dhclient/8.md) is configured for the em0 network device, the lease file will be named *dhclient.leases.em0*.

The format of the lease declarations is described in [dhclient.conf(5)](/dhclient.conf/5.md).

## FILES

- */var/db/dhclient.leases*.*IFNAME*

  Current lease file.

## SEE ALSO

[dhclient.conf(5)](/dhclient.conf/5.md), [dhcp-options(5)](/dhcp-options/5.md), [dhcpd.conf(5)](/dhcpd.conf/5.md), [dhclient(8)](/dhclient/8.md), [dhcpd(8)](/dhcpd/8.md) RFC 2132, RFC 2131.

## AUTHORS

The [dhclient(8)](/dhclient/8.md) utility was written by Ted Lemon ⟨*mellon@vix.com*⟩ under a contract with Vixie Labs.

The current implementation was reworked by Henning Brauer ⟨*henning@openbsd.org*⟩.