[Gllug] Resolving host names from a dhcp server

[N.Pauli]

On Fri, 24 Sep, farnsaw at stonedoor.com wrote: 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: N.Pauli 
> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 8:03 PM 
> To: gllug at gllug.org.uk 
> Subject: [Gllug] Resolving host names from a dhcp server 
>  
> Dear All,  
>   
> I'm using TightVNC's vncviewer to connect to VNCservers running on 
> clients  
> on our network. What I want to do is to be able to type in the host's 
> name  
> (e.g. it24) rather than its ip address (e.g. 10.0.3.62) to be able to 
> view  
> that station. Originally my linux box [linuxbox] had a static ip address 
> so,  
> not unreasonably, I thought that if I want this to work linuxbox should 
> get  
> its address via the same dhcp server as used by the stations. I made 
> this  
> change and manually edited /etc/hosts to reflect the change but I still  
> cannot connect via vncviewer to it24 but only to 10.0.3.62. Nor can I 
> ping  
> it24 - though I can ping 10.0.3.62. Dhcp clients running WindowsXP can 
> pull  
> off this "connect to the host name" trick quite successfully.  
>   
> Is their something here I am missing?  
> -----End Original Message----- 
>  
> Nigel, 
>   You have mixed up DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) with DNS 
> (Domain Name Services).  They are not the same.  DHCP issues IP 
> addresses to individual machines while DNS is the service that will 
> convert names to IP Addresses.  Try looking in your /etc/resolv.conf 
> file (or use the gui interface to change it) and set the DNS server IP 
> (must be IP) to the same DNS server your Windows boxes are using.  You 
> should be able to find out which DNS server they are using by opening a 
> command prompt and typing "ipconfig /all" and you will see listed your 
> DNS Servers.  There can be more than one, so just take the first one and 
> put it first in your /etc/resolv.conf file.  On an explanatory note, you 
> probably have your windows boxes setup to get the DNS server from the 
> DHCP server as well as an IP address, while on your linux box you don't. 
> I would move your linux box back to a static IP if it is a server. 
>  
> Andrew Farnsworth 
 
Andrew, 
 
You're perfectly correct. The 'something here that I am missing' was a 
confusion of dhcp with dns. Linuxbox is not a server so dhcp is ok for it. 
As suggested I did "ipconfig /all" on a windows client and found that it's 
using 10.0.0.3 for its dhcp and dns server. linuxbox's /etc/resolv.conf 
lists 10.0.0.3 as its first nameserver with 127.0.0.1 as the second - and 
yet no joy. 
 
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction here. 
 
Nigel 
 
--  
Nigel Pauli 
Network Manager 
St. John's School, Northwood 
 



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