Getting a router to name-serve DHCP clients.

Hi,

I'm no expert in this stuff so I hope this isn't a stupid question. I've
Googled extensively but cannot find an answer.

I have a U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg ADSL Gateway router. It is set up
to act as a DHCP server. I have a linux box, hostname badger, set up to
be a DHCP client.

Using another linux box, I cannot resolve the name badger. For example,
"dig +short @192.168.1.1 badger" returns nothing. (Where 192.168.1.1 is
the address of the router.)

What do I need to do to get this to work?

Thanks,
DonnySP

DonnySP wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm no expert in this stuff so I hope this isn't a stupid question. I've
> Googled extensively but cannot find an answer.
>
> I have a U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg ADSL Gateway router. It is set up
> to act as a DHCP server. I have a linux box, hostname badger, set up to
> be a DHCP client.
>
> Using another linux box, I cannot resolve the name badger. For example,
> "dig +short @192.168.1.1 badger" returns nothing. (Where 192.168.1.1 is
> the address of the router.)
>
> What do I need to do to get this to work?
>
> Thanks,
> DonnySP

You could try adding a "send host-name badger" to your dhcp client
configuration file, which on my (Debian) system is
/etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf assuming that you are using the ISC dhcp client.

Or perhaps the nameserver on the router just cannot resolve it ;-(

Robert

Robert Harris wrote:
> DonnySP wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm no expert in this stuff so I hope this isn't a stupid question. I've
>> Googled extensively but cannot find an answer.
>>
>> I have a U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg ADSL Gateway router. It is set up
>> to act as a DHCP server. I have a linux box, hostname badger, set up to
>> be a DHCP client.
>>
>> Using another linux box, I cannot resolve the name badger. For example,
>> "dig +short @192.168.1.1 badger" returns nothing. (Where 192.168.1.1 is
>> the address of the router.)
>>
>> What do I need to do to get this to work?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> DonnySP
>
> You could try adding a "send host-name badger" to your dhcp client
> configuration file, which on my (Debian) system is
> /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf assuming that you are using the ISC dhcp client.
>
> Or perhaps the nameserver on the router just cannot resolve it ;-(
>
> Robert
>

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately it didn't help. I have
contacted the router manufacturer, but in the meantime, any more ideas guys?

Donny

DonnySP wrote:
> Robert Harris wrote:
>> DonnySP wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm no expert in this stuff so I hope this isn't a stupid question. I've
>>> Googled extensively but cannot find an answer.
>>>
>>> I have a U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg ADSL Gateway router. It is set up
>>> to act as a DHCP server. I have a linux box, hostname badger, set up to
>>> be a DHCP client.
>>>
>>> Using another linux box, I cannot resolve the name badger. For example,
>>> "dig +short @192.168.1.1 badger" returns nothing. (Where 192.168.1.1 is
>>> the address of the router.)
>>>
>>> What do I need to do to get this to work?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> DonnySP
>>
>> You could try adding a "send host-name badger" to your dhcp client
>> configuration file, which on my (Debian) system is
>> /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf assuming that you are using the ISC dhcp client.
>>
>> Or perhaps the nameserver on the router just cannot resolve it ;-(
>>
>> Robert
>>
>
> Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately it didn't help. I have
> contacted the router manufacturer, but in the meantime, any more ideas
> guys?
>
> Donny

You could run DHCP and DNS on one of your Linux boxes instead of on the
router. The program "dnsmasq" does both of them well.

Robert

DonnySP wrote:

> Robert Harris wrote:
>> DonnySP wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm no expert in this stuff so I hope this isn't a stupid question. I've
>>> Googled extensively but cannot find an answer.
>>>
>>> I have a U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg ADSL Gateway router. It is set up
>>> to act as a DHCP server. I have a linux box, hostname badger, set up to
>>> be a DHCP client.
>>>
>>> Using another linux box, I cannot resolve the name badger. For example,
>>> "dig +short @192.168.1.1 badger" returns nothing. (Where 192.168.1.1 is
>>> the address of the router.)
>>>
>>> What do I need to do to get this to work?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> DonnySP
>>
>> You could try adding a "send host-name badger" to your dhcp client
>> configuration file, which on my (Debian) system is
>> /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf assuming that you are using the ISC dhcp client.
>>
>> Or perhaps the nameserver on the router just cannot resolve it ;-(
>>
>> Robert
>>
>
> Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately it didn't help. I have
> contacted the router manufacturer, but in the meantime, any more ideas
> guys?
>
> Donny

Does your router support "static DHCP" ... which assigns the same ip
address to a given mac address? My router does, and I do name resolution
by having ip's/hostnames listed in /etc/hosts on each machine. For example,
if badger's ip is 192.168.0.10 and bullfrog is 192.168.0.11, then this goes
in /etc/hosts on every box:

192.168.0.10 badger
192.168.0.11 bullfrog
.... etc

My eleven node lan (which includes windows boxen) has been working this
way for a long time. I prefer it to assigning DHCP to a certain machine
because there's no one that is always running.