Fwd: Re: Understanding Local Networking - Thanks, so far....

[DB]

On 09/20/2009 04:12 PM, Tim wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-09-19 at 18:54 +0200, DB wrote:
>    
>> 4) I'm not able to put my "host name" in any of these commands, only
>> the IP address - it seems that somewhere along the line DNS ain't
>> doin' what I thought it ought to!
>>      
> What did you think it should do, and how did you expect it to work?
>
> A DNS server relates numerical IP addresses and named addresses
> together.  It has a database that's either programmed into it, or it
> queries something else for its answers, it doesn't magically get the
> answer.  On a home LAN, either you might preset some local records, or
> you might have a DHCP server that sets records into a DNS server.
>
> You can put /etc/hosts files onto each computer on your LAN, writing
> names and addresses into it, and that'll work fine for most things.
>
> Your "networking" query seems more to do with Windows networking (SMB)
> than just networking.  There's a /etc/samba/lmhosts that can be used for
> name resolution for Windows networking.  Windows can also broadcast
> queries, just hoping that the right box will respond.  I don't know if
> Samba on Linux supports working that way (it's not a good way to run a
> network, by the way).
>
> Using those two hosts and lmhosts files is only going to work if your
> computers always use the same IP addresses.  If you have a LAN where IPs
> get randomly assigned, you'll have to keep changing your hosts and
> lmhosts files.
>
>    
Thanks, Tim.

I guess you've hit the nail on the head....  As there are so many 
"things" automatically installed in/by Fedora, I just sort of assumed 
that when I set a local hostname & then let NM do its stuff, that 
'magically' the IP address & the hostname would be linked together 
"somewhere in a (cyber-)galaxy far, far away"....  Wrong!!!!  I now see 
that there are all sorts of doodads involved & from my quick read of 
various articles & how-tos , there doesn't appear to be a script/wizard 
to set all of them up properly.  More digging is indicated!  BTW, I find 
the thread "name server via dhcp, but don't want dhcp assigned addresses 
" seems to be going down the same path, so I'll keep an eye on it.

To try & answer your point about what am I trying to do.... As I said in 
the original thread, I have a desktop & a laptop, both running F11, plus 
my wife's XP machine; all cable connected via a D-Link box to the ISP's 
box.  I'd like to be able to keep the "Home" partition of the F11 
machines in sync, so that when I go travelling I know that the lappy has 
an up-to-date- copy of everything I've been messing with.  Up till now 
I've used Stick-net to copy over the things I remember.  Then there are 
the external drives attached to the Desktop & the printer, which I'd 
like to access from all 3 machines - "Her Indoors" expects to have her 
photos etc. printed "instantly, if not faster"......  From the 
descriptions, Samba seemed like the way to go....

Anyway, thanks again for your comments, I'll keep on digging!

Dave