What should I be looking for? DNS?

[Fred Thorsby]

Declan Swords wrote:

>Hi,
>I'm trying to install a fedora fileserver. The current setup has windows XP
>machines attached to a router which in turn is connected to a xDSL modem. I
>have connected the fedora machine to the router. Prior to this I took the
>server option when installing fedora. The router run DHCP so IP addresses
>are automatically given out. When I try and ping the server from an XP
>machine with the servers name I get host unknown but if I read the IP
>address in the fedora machine and then ping from the XP machine it returns
>the ping. The same happens when I try and ping from the fedora machine to
>the XP machine.
>
>I know I'm missing something basic. I don't know where to begin to look. Any
>help greatly appreciated.
>/Dec
>
>I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?
>http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html
>
>  
>
Dec:

Have you tried putting your host names/ip addresses in the /etc/hosts 
file?  Your Fedora machine will look there first.  I am using SBC Yahoo! 
DSL and my internal lan has a difficult looking up hosts with DNS, the 
host file works much better.

Fred Thorsby
Jag Computers