Rob Brenart wrote:
John Hasler wrote:To the first point, I'm already running a DHCP server with no reservations... so using a hosts file doesn't work out, as when the laptops come and go I have no promise they'll come back with the same IP. To the second point, it's exactly the last .xxx which is my problem, as it's not steady, I'm already working in just 192.168.1.xI don't really care yet about any kind of centralized user management orwhatnot, what I care about is for the machines to be able to see each other by machinename...You can put the name and IP of every machine into /etc/host on every othermachine, or you can install a dhcp server on one of them.right now I have to go by IP, which aren't reserved so it's kind of a pain.There are IP ranges reserved specifically for LANs such as yours. Use numbers in the 192.168.xxx.xxx or 10.xxx.xxx.xxx ranges.
Hi Rob,You don't say how many machines are involed here but I so often wonder why people even bother with dhcp on home networks when it takes all of one minute per machine to configure a static address and default route, which dispells situations like yours at a stroke. I even configure the router as a relatively dumb default gateway/NAT/firewall, but if Steve's router configuration assigns static IPs by mac address then great, this would take away even the one minute per server workload. I guess this isn't exactly what you wanted to read. Just my tuppence worth - simplest is often best, and certainly with small network configurations I reckon. dhcp is for ISPs :O)
The discussion moves on slightly if your laptops are moving around between different networks of course...