Jonathan Ryshpan <jonrysh@pacbell.net> wrote:

I need to get the IP numbers of local hosts, i.e. hosts inside my gateway's firewall.  The domain name server in the gateway provides the IP addresses of hosts and sites on the internet, but does not provide the IP addresses for hosts on my local net.  The gateway is aware of their names and addresses; one of its admin screens shows them, exactly as they identify themselves.  A chat session with customer support (an extract follows) indicates that this function is definitely not available.  The problem is not disastrous, since the addresses, once assigned, are pretty much static, and so can be put into /etc/hosts.  However this looks a little like a hack. 

Has anyone else dealt with this problem?  Know a way around it?  Do gateways from other manufacturers have similar problems?

On the one hand, I'm pleased to get a straight answer, even though bad news, from Belkin.  On the other I'm amused that after telling me that this particular function of the router is totally broken, the tech rep thanks me for choosing Belkin.

Router is Belkin  F7D5301 v1 (01)
System is Fedora-16 on x86_64 hardware

============ Chat Session (edited) Follows ============
...
jonrysh: ... This router (and all your other routers) will not return the IP address belonging to a host that it knows about in reply to  any kind of query from a host (except the admin interface). Is this correct?
Belkin: thats correct
jonrysh: Thanks very much. We are complete.  Bye
Belkin: Thank you for choosing Belkin technical support have a nice day