How to reach a computer by hostname on a LAN?

Jason Powers powers.jason at jimmy.harvard.edu
Tue Dec 28 07:02:15 UTC 2004


Is your router also handing out the hostnames? In that case, can it be 
activated as a DNS? I usually recommend the common cheesy blue linksys 
routers to my users, and I know they can do that, I assume others can.

The host map or host table (DNS) is like the White Pages, it's what your 
computer uses to look up IPs for hostnames and hostnames for IPs.

The DNS your ISP hands you is their copy of the public one, but you are 
running a local domain (the 192.168.1.x subnet) which their server will 
not have - your internal hostnames are not listed in their phone book, 
and won't be.

Normal DHCP config hands out DNS as well as IP, so the router gets it 
from your ISP and gives it to the machines. Most routers will let you 
use them as a DNS, so you can tell it to keep a table and then append 
the router as one of the DNS it assigns to your linux boxes.

You'll probably want to look up the configuration process in the 
instruction manual BEFORE you try to set it, because if you make a 
mistake you won't be able to see the internet until you fix it, so 
download the documentation now if you don't have the booklet.

Alternatively you can alter one of the machines to be a DNS but then you 
have to assign it manually in the other machine or in the router, it's 
easier if there are only 2 or 3 machines to use the router if it is 
capable.

While you're in the router, change its internal address to 192.168.1.100 
and have it assign IPs starting with .101, .102, etc. leaving it at .1 
is not as bad as keeping the factory default password, but it's still 
asking for trouble.

Jason

Christopher J. Bottaro wrote:
> Simple setup.  I have a router that assigns IP addresses by DHCP.  I have
> two linux machines:  compa and compb which get their IP addresses using
> DHCP with the router.  From compa, I want to be able to say "ping compb"
> instead of having to use ifconfig on compb to figure out what its IP
> address is, then ping it (i.e. "ping 192.168.1.3").
> 
> How is this possible?  Manually editing the /etc/hosts file doesn't work
> because the IP addresses can change at boot (or whenever DHCP is used to
> get a new address).
> 
> Thanks.
> 




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