On Sun, Jul 11, 2004 at 12:46:38AM -0400, Chad Perrin wrote:
<snip>
Larry's already adequately answered this, but I'll comment anyway.
> The fact that my Windows machines can talk to each other is actually
> relevant,
> however. I need my Linux machines to be able to contact the Windows
> machines by
> hostname. That is one of the things I'm trying to accomplish. Thus,
> the fact
> that the Windows machines are talking to each other means that there's
> at least
> some kind of WINS or NetBIOS broadcast going on in the network.
> Additionally, I
> can resolve by hostname from the Linux boxen when using nmblookup. It's
> ping
> that's falling flat on its face, along with some other (more actually
> useful for
> reasons other than diagnostics) utilities/applications.
>
Yes, you've already established that Windows works great when talking to
other Windows machines. But Windows uses a different infrastructure for
identifying machines than Linux. Linux uses DNS, and Windows uses
WINS/NetBIOS. The fact that you can ping all the boxes numerically means
the network itself is working. You're simply lacking the DNS
capabilities that Linux needs to identify machines by hostname.
> The reason I need dynamic IPs involves the fact that computers tend to
> enter and
> leave this network regularly. This network, among other things, must
> accomodate
> the computers of clients when they're being worked on. It would be nice,
> from
> time to time, to be able to contact said comeputers from a Linux machine
> without
> having to change the network configuration on each Linux machine when
> I connect
> the computer to the network. I'd rather do it "right".
>
I wondered if you had temporary odd machine connections. The only reason
I'd ever use DHCP is when you have completely unknown machines hooking
up to your network. Having "known" computers temporarily hook up to your
network (like your laptop) would still allow fixed IPs. But the odd
customer machine, no. Of course, in that case, I think I'd still stick
with fixed IPs for the always-connected machines, and provide a DNS/DHCP
"windows" of IPs for temporary connections.
> It seems that if Samba can handle resolution of NetBIOS names using
> nmblookup, I
> should be able to get name resolution through other utilities like ping
> as well.
Again, different mechanism for resolving names. Just because Samba (a
clone of Windows networking) can resolve names doesn't mean Linux can.
It may _seem_ like they should all work the same, but they don't.
There's no foot-operated shifter on a car, and no floor-mounted stick
shift on a motorcycle. You can shift gears on both vehicles, but you
don't do it the same way.
> It might be "easier" to use fixed IPs, but that would neuter the network's
> effectiveness for my purposes. In other words, that's a non-solution in
> this case.
Makes sense. I think Larry's provided the appropriate solution.
Paul
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