On 10/18/07, Tim <ignored_mailbox@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Thu, 2007-10-18 at 11:35 -0700, J. Alex Aycinena wrote: > > The router is a Linksys NR041. When looking at its DHCP Client Table, > > all the machines, Windows and Fedora, have their proper names shown, > > so the Fedora machines seem to be forwarding their names to the router > > properly when they get their IP addresses. I can't see anything in the > > documentation that came with the router, nor the website, to indicate > > whether or not it can function as a DNS. > > I'm not familiar with it, but many do not. That table just gives *you* > information about what's going on, DHCP-wise. > > It's simple enough to test, though. Use the dig tool. Ask the Linksys > to resolve a machine name for you. > > Syntax: dig requestaddress @resolveraddress > > (The lack of the space after the @ sign is deliberate.) > > e.g. dig mybox @192.168.1.254 > > And the "ANSWER SECTION" should give you an IP for that request. > (That's presuming that your router was at 192.168.1.254, it may not be.) > > Also try the reverse lookup, if that works. Take the IP belonging to > mybox (let's say it's 192.168.1.1), and ask the resolver to tell you the > hostname for it. > > e.g. dig -x 192.168.1.1 @192.168.1.254 > > And the "ANSWER SECTION" should give you a hostname for that request. > Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it and received the reply "connection timed out; no server could be reached" so I guess the router can't function as a DNS. > > Because the router is the only device that is reliably turned on on > > the network when any particular computer is turned on, I would prefer > > to have it play the DHCP and DNS role rather than any of the > > computers. Also because of laptops and occassional guest computers on > > the LAN, I don't want to use fixed IP addresses (1 Vista desktop, 1 > > Vista laptop, occasionally a couple of other Windows machines, 1 to 3 > > Fedora desktops - typically from 0 to 4 machines turned on at any > > time). > > You *can* still use fixed addresses for your own machines. Just pick > ones out of the range the DHCP will dole out. > > > Do you know how to indicate to the Fedora boxes that the router is the > > DNS? Perhaps I don't have that configured right; I could just try that > > and see if it works. > > You'll probably find that the router has a DHCP server that tells all > the clients which DNS server to use, either itself, or it'll pass on the > IP addresses that the ISP gave as their own DNS servers. You should be > able to configure your router to declare the DNS servers that you want > to use. > > NB: Just because the router can act as a DNS server for your LAN, > doesn't mean that it'll resolve local names. It may just act as a relay > proxy for your ISP's DNS servers. This seems to be the case for this router (that it, it passes on the ISPs DNS IP addresses to the LAN machines - it doesn't act as a DNS itself). I successfully used the dig command with www.google.com and one of the DNS addresses passed on by the router from my ISP. > > > If after trying that it doesn't work (that is the router fails to work > > as a DNS) then is it possible to have the router continue functioning > > as the DHCP and set up the F7 box as a local DNS for the LAN (although > > I'm not sure how it could get its information to do that)? > > Yes, but I think you wouldn't have enough configuration options in your > router to make its DHCP server update your local DNS server, they'd be > independent. If you're going to have a local machine act as a DNS > server, then you may as well get it to be the DHCP server, too. In that > case, you'd turn off the DHCP server in your router, and let your > machine answer all queries. > > > I guess a third option is to try and get the Fedora boxes to get the > > name resolution however the Vista machine is doing it (you guessed > > perhaps using Windows networking). Can this be done using Samba and > > then somehow making the information available to the native Linux > > mechanisms so that you could successfully ping the Vista machine from > > the Fedora machine using its name? > > If you have a working DNS server, then all the machines will use that. > I think Windows will even use it in preference to SMB for resolving > names when it does Windows filesharing. It'll certainly use DNS in > preference to SMB for other name resolution reasons. > > I have a local DHCP and DNS server running on Fedora, and all machines > use it for name resolution, Windows 95 through to Vista, included. > I guess my best bet, if I find I need to access the non-Fedora machines from the Fedora ones through something other than Samba, is to use fixed IP addresses for the non-Fedora computers and to refer to those fixed addresses from the Fedora boxes. At least for what I was originally trying to do, which is to access Fedora from Vista with an NX Client, I can use names without resorting to fixed IP addresses since Vista can somehow do the name resolution. Now if I could only figure out how to solve my original problem: how to get the NX Client to display Gnome properly!
