DHCP & DNS

[Dave Burns]

If you have 100 boxes, run DNS.  Sounds like you want (?) static host
names, might as well go for static IP too. Why not just make it all
static if they know each other and make assumptions about each other.

I just happen to know of an office with about 100 PCs in it, using NIS
and NFS means they need a static relationship between machine and IP.
(Well, again, it could be some other way but it is already complicated
enough.) They have some hosts set with static IP, others get IP from
DHCP but it is always the same (DHCP server config knows what IP
belongs to what MAC address), and a small number of laptops  share a
pool of IPs and do not have predictable IP.

Sounds to me like making everything totally dynamic is overkill in
your current situation, and would be skull-crackingly complicated with
100 PCs that think they know a lot about each other. Maybe there is
some applicable scale in between.

Or just don't assume that any relationship is static, then everything
can be dynamic.

What would really make you happy? Some sort of peer-to-peer DNS
without a server? Maybe you can use MAC addresses somehow?
Dave


On 10/21/07, zephod at cfl.rr.com <zephod at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>
> ---- Dave Burns <tburns at hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > My lazy ignorant suggestion is to reconfigure the router so that you
> > know the IP of the two boxes will not change and then use /etc/hosts.
>
> Yes, I know I could do that. It's OK when there are only 2 boxes but what if I had a small office setup with, say, 100 PCs. It's not so practical then. I'm interested in finding out if there is another way to make this work.
>
> Steve