---
title: "Sending Commands to Kea DHCP via HTTP"
slug: "sending-commands-to-kea-via-http"
description: "When sending a command via HTTP, you must specify whether it's addressed to dhcpv4, dhcpv6, or the control agent itself, via the 'service' parameter."
tags: ["kea dhcp"]
updated: 2021-03-16T15:38:06Z
published: 2021-03-16T15:38:06Z
canonical: "kb.isc.org/sending-commands-to-kea-via-http"
stale: true
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://kb.isc.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Sending Commands to Kea via HTTP

When sending commands to Kea via a UNIX socket, there's no ambiguity; only one daemon is listening, so there is no need to explicitly specify a recipient. However, when sending commands via HTTP, you must specify whether it's addressed to dhcpv4, dhcpv6, or the control agent itself. This specification is added using the `service` parameter.

For example, the following command adds a reservation via dhcpv4:

```
{
   "command": "reservation-add",
   "service": [ "dhcp4" ],
   "arguments": {
                   "reservation": {
                   "subnet-id": 16,
                   "hw-address": "b8:27:eb:8c:7a:be",
                   "ip-address": "203.0.113.2"
               }
   }
}
```

For more information about commands in the Kea Shell, please refer to the [Kea Administrator Reference Manual](https://kea.readthedocs.io/en/latest/arm/shell.html).