I went through various stack exchange post to understand the concept of DHCP offer when it comes as a unicast to client from the DHCP server.
A server can send a unicast DHCP offer since it knows the host's MAC address. Ok I understood this but what happens at IP layer? Why host did not dropped the unicast DHCP offer at IP layer?
As per my understanding, an IPv4 host will drop layer-3 traffic delivered to it that is not destined to its IPv4 address, a subscribed IPv4 multicast address, or an IPv4 broadcast address, even if it is delivered via a layer-2 valid mac address frame.
Now since my host does not have any ip address and DHCP offer is not a broadcast address then how come host accepted the unicast DHCP offer? Why host did not dropped the DHCP offer at IP layer? I hope you got my question. Overall I want to understand what happens to the unicast DHCP offer at IP layer? Can anyone please explain me