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Warren Pena
Asked: 2010-08-19 20:57:58 +0800 CST

Access server by host name?

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I have a mixed network with mostly Windows machines, a Mac, and a few Linux boxes. There is no DNS or WINS server, and adding one is outside of my control. If I put a clean install of 10.04 desktop on a computer, then all other machines on the network can get to that machine by hostname just fine.

However, if I put 10.04 server on the same computer, then the other machines can only get to it by IP address. The hostname does not resolve. What do I need to do on the server so that all the other machines on the network can get to it?

server avahi

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This has to do with Avahi, a Zeroconf implementation which advertises hostnames on the local network.

    You can get started with Avahi on your server by installing the daemon: 

    sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon

    From that point, you should be ready to go. Check out the docs in /usr/share/doc/avahi-daemon/ if you have additional trouble.

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  2. You have to have a DNS (Domain Name System) server somewhere to handle that name resolution. Some routers have a DNS server coupled with their DHCP server. Check your router and see if it has one and it's disabled. Ubuntu automatically sends the configured host name out to the DHCP server when it requests an IP address, and if the router has an enabled DNS server, it should report that name/IP to the DNS server, also.

    Short of that, you can put the name and IP address of your Ubuntu box in the hosts file on the windows machine in c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. Provided your Ubuntu machine's IP address doesn't change (or change often), that might be a simple, long term solution.

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  3. You configure nmbd with a netbios name and then you can use that netbios name on the local network without knowing the IP address.

    One time, whilst talking to a Windows SysAdmin that I know, I was surprised to be told that when you plug a Windows PC into the network, even if you don't know the new IP of that machine, you can still find it on the network by using it's Windows name.

    I thought that this was some kind of crazy magic but it turns out you can achieve the same thing on Linux by installing, configuring and running nmbd. This is part of Samba.

    To find out more, check out this link.

    It sounds that this is what you are asking about.

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