Where/s the name?

[onederer]

After going broadband, I installed a router, and now all the machines on my LAN can easily access the internet using DHCP. However, that created a new problem. Are you a knowledgeable Linux Guru? If you are, then you should easily be able to answer this puzzle.In order to access a computer on a LAN by pet name, one needs a name/IP address pair. Now, with DHCP, the addresses are never the same. They change everytime a computer is shutdown and restarted again.The local router serves up the IP addresses. Because of this, it is impossible to enter a "fixed" pair of "name/IP" address, in the HOSTS file, and now, other computers have nowhere to look, to find the name of the computer that owns that IP address. I am unable to find a computer on my LAN by its pet name, and it is not very practical for me to remember those ever changing IP addresses.Sure, sure, I could make it easy and assign a "fixed" IP address to each machine. That would be easy for my situation. However, that would upset the niceties of having DHCP in the first place!In a large company, how do they do it? The manager would never be able to keep up with ever changing IP addresses, and their computer names. How do they manage the capability of accessing the computers in a large environment, by it's pet name.In Windows, NETBUEI, can manage this. But I don't know how to do this in Linux. ????ThanksPlease send a copy of your reply to: onederer."nospam".@hotpop.com

[Bruno]

Not only change the name in /etc/hosts but also in /etc/sysconfig/network Bruno

[Peachy]

In order to access a computer on a LAN by pet name, one needs a name/IP address pair.  Now, with DHCP, the addresses are never the same.  They change everytime a computer is shutdown and restarted again.The local router serves up the IP addresses.  Because of this, it is impossible to enter a "fixed" pair of "name/IP" address, in the HOSTS file, and now, other computers have nowhere to look, to find the name of the computer that owns that IP address.  I am unable to find a computer on my LAN by its pet name, and it is not very practical for me to remember those ever changing IP addresses.

Well actually, in your hosts file you would simply need to have at least the following pair:127.0.0.1 HOSTNAMEOn a simple Windows network that might include a Linux host, then the HOSTNAME of the Linux machine will be visible on the network only if the Linux machine is running the Samba server. If you run a Windows 2000 Server Active Directory than you can use DNS to keep track of assigned DHCP clients.

In a large company, how do they do it?  The manager would never be able to keep up with ever changing IP addresses, and their computer names.  How do they manage the capability of accessing the computers in a large environment, by it's pet name.

Easy. They use an internal DNS server to keep track of assigned host names from DHCP clients. When a client machine picks up an assigned IP address from a DHCP server, the DHCP server can attach a hostname and domain name if necessary. Our IT department maintains a database of MAC address numbers that are loaded into the DHCP server and these are attached to IP addresses.