[ale] Something is Fishy About My Network

[James Sumners]

You need a nameserver on your network to ping by name. The easiest
thing to do there is to setup Samba to be a WINS server[1]. That way,
when machines join your network, they will tell the WINS server what
their name is (unicron in your case) and its associated IP address.
That will solve your "ping by name" problem. On my network I let my
MythTV box be the WINS server. It's always running. You simply need a
line in your smb.conf that reads "wins support = yes". Sorry, I can't
tell you the GUI stuff; I don't know it.

If you look at /etc/resolv.conf you'll probably see something akin to
"nameserver 192.168.1.1". That means name lookups are going to first
ask your local nameserver (a WINS server is easiest) before asking
192.168.1.1 (in my case, that is the local gateway).

In regard to the firewall, there really isn't a problem with it. It is
going to stop things from coming in without you first requesting them.
It's really kind of pointless if you are already behind a firewall
(and you are if you use any off-the-shelf home router). But the
firewall isn't stopping your name requests.


[1] -- http://tinyurl.com/bh2e6g

2009/3/4 Marc Ferguson <marcferguson at gmail.com>:
> Hi,
>
> I'm running Fedora 10 x86_64 and I really think something is odd about my
> ability to network and I think it's all pointing to DNS.  First, I've been
> running Linux (full time) for almost a year, but I am still a newb.  There
> are still some Windows concepts that I haven't been able to shake yet, so
> please be very simple yet thorough with your replies (I'd appreciate it).
>
> So here's the meat of my cry-for-help caserole.
>
> I'm having a problem pinging my hostname.  I'll ping it and 127.0.0.1 is the
> resulting IP.
> I see that my router has given my computer an IP address, but it doesn't
> have the hostname in its table.
> I can't ping, by host name, my computer from any other computer on the home
> network.
>
> So because of those issues, I can't properly network my linux box with other
> computers in my home network.  I just found out (from a friend) that I had
> an internal firewall turned on.  I didn't even realize that Fedora shipped
> with a firewall.  From my Windows-days, I've learned that software firewall
> causes too many headaches.  So; I disabled the firewall I discovered in
> Fedora.  Thanks for any feedback.
>
> system-config-network 1.5.95
> I'm not all that handy with command-line network configuring yet so I'm
> using the GUI program system-config-network.  In my DNS tab here are my
> settings:
>
> hostname: unicron.cybertron
> primary dns: 192.168.1.1 (router)
> secondary dns:
> tertiary dns:
> dns search path: unicron
>
> --
> Marc F.



-- 
James Sumners
http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
CH:D 59