[plug] Basic DHCP questions

[Mark Nold]

Setting up Mac Address is probably overkill.. you can pickup the hostname specified
on the PC (ie: in Win32 under control panel DNS Tab) but i believe you need
the latest Bind (9 i think) and DHCP. I think both have to be pretty new for
this to go.

This means you dont have to track any PC's at all.

mn


>> My question is do I have to remove the hostname/ip addresses I have
>> in the /etc/hosts file, and change the /etc/nsswitch.conf to be "dns
>> file nis" instead of "files dns nis"?  How does dhcp or arp keep
>> track of a machine hostname to ip address connection, when the ip
>> addresses can change each time you reboot?  Is there a dhcp cache or
>> config file maintained by dhcp which assigns hostnames to mac
>> addresses to keep it all straight?
>
>There are probably other and simpler ways, but I do this:
>
>1. Run a domain name server on the DHCP server (192.168.1.1) which
>  provides name-to-IP resolution for all machines on the LAN
>
>2. In the relevant subnet section (in my case 192.168.1.0) of
>  /etc/dhcpd.conf, put this line: 
>  option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
>
>3. The group statement for the machines on the LAN goes like this:
>
>group {
>    use-host-decl-names on;
>    host colinlabtop2 { 
>	hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00;
>	fixed-address colinlabtop2.homelan; 
>    } 
>    host joanibook { 
>	hardware ethernet 00:000:00:00:00:00;
>	fixed-address joanibook.homelan; 
>    } 
>    ... and so on, one host statement per machine on the LAN
> }
>
>You replace the '00's in the ethernet lines with the real MAC numbers
>of the ethernet cards on your LAN, which you can find when all
>machines are connected by doing 'arp -a' on the server.
>
>4. For good measure, make the hostnames of the machines on the LAN match
>  the names in the host statements (here, colinlabtop2 and joanibook).
>
>5. And for further good measure, I put into /etc/resolv.conf on each
>LAN machine: nameserver 192.168.1.1
>
>It's the colinlabtop2.homelan and joanibook.homelan addresses which
>you need to have your DNS resolve to an IP; then DHCP will always give
>them the same IP when a machine with the matching ethernet card
>connects and ask for an IP. You won't need to change your /etc/hosts
>if the IPs in it match those given by DNS.
>
>['labtop' is an in-joke; it's not that I use the same spell-checker as
>James and Tony :-)]
>
>Colin
>
>
>
>
Mark Nold
markn at enspace.com