Jen Kea DHCP Management Console
Jen Kea DHCP Management Console is a browser-based interface for administering ISC Kea DHCP Server.
What Jen Kea DHCP Management Console is
Jen Kea DHCP Management Console is a browser-based interface for administering ISC Kea DHCP Server. It brings lease, reservation, subnet, and infrastructure management together with a dashboard showing subnet utilization, lease activity, server status, HA state, and alerts. Operators can filter active leases, release them, clear stale entries, turn dynamic leases into reservations, and import or export CSV files. Subnet and pool edits go through Kea validation, a host backup, multi-server preflight, and rollback protection before being applied over SSH. Optional IPv6 support covers leases, devices, reservations, pools, timers, and metrics. Notifications can go to channels including Pushover, Telegram, Slack, ntfy, Discord, email, and webhooks; plugins add options such as network discovery and local DNS synchronization. Jen uses MySQL or MariaDB for Kea data and can connect through the Control Agent or direct daemon sockets. It is free and open source under GPL v3, with guided installation for Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 and Docker deployment. Its stated target is homelabs and small businesses managing a handful of servers.
Good
- Lease, reservation, and subnet tools in a web interface
- Optional IPv6 leases, pools, reservations, and metrics
- Configurable dashboard widgets and alert channels
- TOTP MFA, passkeys, roles, and audit logs
- Free and open source under GPL v3
Watch out
- Designed for a handful of servers, not large fleets
- Requires Kea with MySQL or MariaDB
- Solo-maintained, with no dedicated security team or paid support
- Only the latest release receives security fixes
Who it suits
Jen suits homelab and small-business operators who administer a handful of Kea servers and want browser-based lease, reservation, and subnet controls. It is designed for Linux and self-hosted deployment, with Ubuntu or Docker options.
Verdict
Jen offers a broad set of browser-based controls for Kea, including optional IPv6, access controls, and deployment safeguards. Its stated scale target and limited support model are important considerations for larger or security-sensitive deployments.
Plans and prices
From Jen Kea DHCP Management Console's own pricing page, checked 14 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| GPL v3 open-source | Free | self-hosted · Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 or Docker · ISC Kea with MySQL/MariaDB |
The facts
Each one read from Jen Kea DHCP Management Console's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Access control
- The product provides SuperAdmin, Admin and Viewer roles plus subnet-level permissions.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Agentless design
- The architecture uses one Flask process and does not require a resident Jen agent on each Kea server.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Authentication
- Security controls include TOTP and WebAuthn/passkey MFA, trusted devices, login throttling, session timeouts, audit logging and HTTPS certificate upload.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Configuration safety
- Before applying subnet changes Jen validates Kea configuration, backs up the host configuration, records revisions and can roll back failed changes.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Dashboard
- The dashboard displays live subnet utilization, recent leases, server and HA status, alerts, configurable refresh and customizable widgets.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Deployment
- Installation is offered through a guided shell installer or Docker Compose with either an external or bundled database.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Diagnostics
- Client investigation supports MAC, IPv4, IPv6, DUID and hostname lookup with Explain, Trace, Timeline, DNS, Config and Changes views.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Documentation
- The repository includes installation, architecture, security, feature, contribution and changelog documents.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Extensibility
- Plugin API v3 exposes event emission, row actions, search providers, alert types and plugin API-key routes.checked 14 Oct 2026
- High availability
- Jen shows HA state, compares leases across a pair and provides a guided maintenance workflow when the Kea HA hook is present.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Independent ecosystem context
- GitHub's Kea topic page showed 62 public repositories when opened, indicating an active collection of related Kea projects.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Independent market listing
- Gartner's DNS, DHCP and IPAM market page listed ten products and did not show Jen among those product listings.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Independent praise: motivation
- A Reddit user said Stork was difficult to get running and linked Jen as a Linux application they wrote to provide the functionality they wanted.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- Jen connects to Kea through the Control Agent or direct daemon control sockets, uses MySQL/MariaDB for Kea data, and uses SSH for configuration and service operations.checked 30 Sep 2026
- IPv6
- DHCPv6 support is optional and covers leases, devices, reservations, subnets, dashboard views, search and authored starting configuration.checked 14 Oct 2026
- ISC API transition
- ISC says the Kea Control Agent was deprecated in version 3.0 and removed in version 3.2, with direct daemon APIs replacing it.checked 14 Oct 2026
- ISC configuration-backend limitation
- ISC states that Kea's configuration backend does not currently work for DDNS, the Control Agent or several other hooks.checked 14 Oct 2026
- ISC Kea database support
- ISC documents Kea support for MySQL and PostgreSQL backends and says shared backends can serve multiple Kea servers.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Kea connectivity
- Jen uses Kea command HTTP APIs, direct daemon control sockets, MySQL/MariaDB data access and SSH for configuration and service operations.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Lease management
- Operators can browse and filter leases, release leases, remove stale leases, convert dynamic leases to reservations and import or export CSV data.checked 14 Oct 2026
- License
- The repository states that Jen is released under GNU GPL version 3.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Limit: fleet scale
- Jen's own architecture document says its single-process design does not scale to fleets as well as an agent architecture.checked 14 Oct 2026
- Limit: Kea migration
- Reddit users describe Kea migration as troublesome, including reports of crashes, unexpected reservation behavior and returning to ISC DHCP.checked 14 Oct 2026
The company
- Maker background
- The repository credits Matthew Thibodeau, described as an IT engineer with more than two decades of experience, as the builder.checked 14 Oct 2026
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