Networking question

[gazpacho]

I have in humble casa de Gazpacho a home network. I use a NAT router for connecting the various computing devices to the internet. I have a desktop and two laptops. They get their IP addresses via DHCP from the router. I want to be able to talk from one computer to the other using the static easily remembered names desktop, lappy1, lappy2. Currently I am doing this by setting up the router to always assign the same IP addresses to my computers and putting this name to IP information in the hosts file. This seems like an old early 90s way of doing things. There must be a way to have the computers get the name to IP information from the router relieving me of maintaining 3 files and the reserved IP addresses in the router. What is the proper way of doing this?

[beowulff]

Bonjour. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software))

[md2000]

If they're on the same network, a bunch of windows pcs should recognize each other by broadcast. Just be sure they are in the same workgroup. For simplicity create the same use rids passwords on each pc.

[dzero]

If you're using Windows 7, this is very easy to do. You just have to set a homegroup password and put everybody in the same homegroup. If you're using XP or Vista, it's probably a bit more involved. I think I used to use some sort of software to do it but I have no idea anymore what it was.

[gazpacho]

Thanks for the replies. I think you guys are this more complicated than needed or I am not explaining myself very well. I think that there should be some DNS like way for computers to get the IP addresses of other computers on the local network. Is a local DNS something that is standardized? I should be able to ping lappy1 from lappy2 and have it resolve to the computer on my local network. If I do not have lappy2 in the host file for lappy1 I get some common computer on my ISP. If I choose to ping random names they all resolve to the same IP address that is a computer managed by my ISP.

[dzero]

I don't know if this will help, and I'm guessing you already know this, but there is a difference between your LAN addressing scheme and the WAN address. All LAN addresses are of the form 192.168.xxx.xxx with the last 2 nodes being assigned to individual manufacturers. For example my LAN addresses are all 192.168.11.xxx. My external or WAN address is something totally different.

Anyway, back to your last post, do you want to have a script or program that can match the name of a computer with its internal LAN address? If so, can I ask why you would need to do that?

[voltaire]

All LAN addresses are of the form 192.168.xxx.xxx with the last 2 nodes being assigned to individual manufacturers.

Since this is GQ and all, I'm gonna go ahead and raise the BS flag on this bit. None of that is true, and some of it is actually the exact opposite of true. The IP addresses in the 192.168.xxx.xxx range are specifically NOT assigned to anyone, that way anybody can use them on their LANs without duplicating IP addresses out in the WAN.

[dzero]

Since this is GQ and all, I'm gonna go ahead and raise the BS flag on this bit. None of that is true, and some of it is actually the exact opposite of true. The IP addresses in the 192.168.xxx.xxx range are specifically NOT assigned to anyone, that way anybody can use them on their LANs without duplicating IP addresses out in the WAN.
Aren't we saying the same thing? Each manufacturer has to have the internal lan address start with 192.168 Then the 3rd node is assigned based on manufacturer.

I don't know if it matters if an address is duplicated on the WAN. Since it's processed separately I can't see why it would be. Also, I know that I can change that 3rd node myself since I've done it, i just couldn't be bothered with the new router.

Anyway, if I've stated any incorrect information, I certainly hope that I will be corrected and chastised appropriately.

[tellyworth]

Aren't we saying the same thing? Each manufacturer has to have the internal lan address start with 192.168 Then the 3rd node is assigned based on manufacturer.

No, that's not at all correct. voltaire is right.

It sounds like you're confusing LAN IPs with MAC addresses, which are indeed manufacturer-assigned.

[Reply]

Aren't we saying the same thing? Each manufacturer has to have the internal lan address start with 192.168 Then the 3rd node is assigned based on manufacturer.

I don't know if it matters if an address is duplicated on the WAN. Since it's processed separately I can't see why it would be. Also, I know that I can change that 3rd node myself since I've done it, i just couldn't be bothered with the new router.

Anyway, if I've stated any incorrect information, I certainly hope that I will be corrected and chastised appropriately.

It's not assigned to any manufacturer. Perhaps what you mean is that a manufacturer can choose to implement any number they want as the default setting for their routers.

Both Cisco and D-Link can make the default 192.168.1.x, or they can both choose to use 192.168.100.x, or they can each do something different, but neither of them (nor anyone else) has ownership or exclusivity over that choice.

[Reply]

I have in humble casa de Gazpacho a home network. I use a NAT router for connecting the various computing devices to the internet. I have a desktop and two laptops. They get their IP addresses via DHCP from the router. I want to be able to talk from one computer to the other using the static easily remembered names desktop, lappy1, lappy2. Currently I am doing this by setting up the router to always assign the same IP addresses to my computers and putting this name to IP information in the hosts file. This seems like an old early 90s way of doing things. There must be a way to have the computers get the name to IP information from the router relieving me of maintaining 3 files and the reserved IP addresses in the router. What is the proper way of doing this?

The only way I know to do this is to give every computer on the network a static internal IP, and then use a hosts file on each computer that says lappy1=192.168.1.100, lappy2=192.168.1.101, etc.

[voltaire]

Aren't we saying the same thing? Each manufacturer has to have the internal lan address start with 192.168 Then the 3rd node is assigned based on manufacturer.

I don't know if it matters if an address is duplicated on the WAN. Since it's processed separately I can't see why it would be. Also, I know that I can change that 3rd node myself since I've done it, i just couldn't be bothered with the new router.

Anyway, if I've stated any incorrect information, I certainly hope that I will be corrected and chastised appropriately.

Yeah, like tellyworth said, it sounds like you're confusing MAC addresses and IP addresses.

To site Wiki: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_network)
These addresses are characterized as private because they are not globally delegated, meaning they are not allocated to any specific organization, and IP packets addressed by them cannot be transmitted onto the public Internet. Anyone may use these addresses without approval from a regional Internet registry (RIR).For the other part of that sentence that was wrong, look at the first table in that wiki article for the other two private* LAN address ranges.

* This nomenclature can sometimes be confusing because, in a way, private network ranges are public, and public network ranges are private. lol

The only way I know to do this is to give every computer on the network a static internal IP, and then use a hosts file on each computer that says lappy1=192.168.1.100, lappy2=192.168.1.101, etc.

That's the simple way, and I believe the OP is already doing that. He's looking for the complicated way. :p

[si_blakely]

gazpacho is asking about DHCP/DNS integration.

Traditionally, IP address assignment and DNS resolution have been separate processes, and for many years little effort was made to integrate the two. DHCP allows a requesting client to provide a host name, but the DHCP server was required to register this with any name resolution systems.

For early versions of Windows networking that used TCP/IP, Microsoft provided a system called WINS (Windows Internet Name System) that acted to relate NetBios (Windows Networking) names to IP addresses. This was a broadcast system that only worked on the local segment, and only worked with Microsoft operations (i.e. does not work with WinSock/TCP network stack applications like FTP/Ping/web browsers). One of the new features of Active Directory released with Windows 2000 was AD integrated DHCP/DNS. Windows clients that were part of AD could request a DHCP address allocation and AD would then update the AD linked DNS server with name resolution information. This deprecates WINS in an AD environment, and makes maintaining an AD environment far easier (particularly with multiple networks/segments/sites).

In a home Windows network, WINS is still used (this is part of what defines a Windows Home Network). But it still only works with Microsoft stack operations (file shares, remote control etc) and not TCP stack operations.

The Linux world has been much slower to adapt and the lightweight DHCP and DNS servers used in routers still often do not integrate client name resolution. This is a lack of desire from manufacturers - there are plenty of suitable solutions, but they have not been integrated. I'm pretty sure the custom dd-wrt firmware does, but many lightweight Linux home server/firewall solutions still do not. It really is a bit of a failing that does not need to be that way.

Anyhow, a bit technical and historical, but I hope it clarifies.

Si

[Quartz]

I have in humble casa de Gazpacho a home network. I use a NAT router for connecting the various computing devices to the internet.

Your simplest solution is to enable DNS on your router. If your router does not do DNS (and I'd be very surprised if this were the case) then get yourself a router which does do DNS.

[si_blakely]

Your simplest solution is to enable DNS on your router. If your router does not do DNS (and I'd be very surprised if this were the case) then get yourself a router which does do DNS.Not many home routers do DNS registration for DHCP clients, or WINS redirection.

Some home routers allow static addition of entries to the DNS server, but it is not always the case.

Si

[Quartz]

Not many home routers do DNS registration for DHCP clients, or WINS redirection.

Are you sure about that? I just went to my usual component supplier, Novatech, and their second-cheapest (http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/networking/routers/adslroutersbtlines/bipac5200src.html) home ADSL router has DHCP, DNS, and a whole lot more for all of £32.99 inc VAT.

[si_blakely]

Are you sure about that? I just went to my usual component supplier, Novatech, and their second-cheapest (http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/networking/routers/adslroutersbtlines/bipac5200src.html) home ADSL router has DHCP, DNS, and a whole lot more for all of £32.99 inc VAT.It is the integration of DHCP and DNS that is the issue - the DHCP server has to honour the host name field of the DHCPRequest, and pass that value (along with the assigned IP address) to the DNS server as a new DNS registration (dynamic dns updates). That integrated functionality has not been very common in the past. It may be less so in the future as IPv6 starts to take hold.

Si

[gazpacho]

Thanks again for the responses. It sounds like there is not a better way to to match names with IP addresses than using static addresses (with DHCP reservations) and host files.

The DNS on the router linked by Quartz is DDNS (dynamic dns). From what I understand this allows the router to talk to a service that will put the dynamic public IP address of the router into the internet wide DNS systems allowing someone to setup a server that can be easily access from the global internet when you only get a dynamic IP address from your ISP. This is not what I am trying to do.

[si_blakely]

The DNS on the router linked by Quartz is DDNS (dynamic dns). From what I understand this allows the router to talk to a service that will put the dynamic public IP address of the router into the internet wide DNS systems allowing someone to setup a server that can be easily access from the global internet when you only get a dynamic IP address from your ISP. This is not what I am trying to do.It doesn't help that ISC BIND/DHCP (the most common DNS server) calls client DNS updating Dynamic DNS - the mechanism is basically the same as the sort of DynDNS used to manage DNS targeting for a home internet connection. Home routers generally use a simple caching DNS server for the internal clients - there are some better lightweight DNS/DHCP servers available (suitable for home routers), but they don't have a great deal of traction yet.

Si

[ZipperJJ]

I think we've gone way past the answer here, which is what md2000 posted in post #3. If all of your computers have names and are all in the same workgroup then you don't need anything special with your router to access them by name. You have to configure sharing on your computers but that's it.

I just typed \\awesomesauce into Explorer (shut up!) and it brought up all the shared folders on my media computer. I have no idea what its IP is but I know it's not static.

[gazpacho]

I think we've gone way past the answer here, which is what md2000 posted in post #3. If all of your computers have names and are all in the same workgroup then you don't need anything special with your router to access them by name. You have to configure sharing on your computers but that's it.

I just typed \\awesomesauce into Explorer (shut up!) and it brought up all the shared folders on my media computer. I have no idea what its IP is but I know it's not static.I think that this is how things are supposed to work. I do know that I initially setup sharing between lappy1 and desktop just using the windows 7 homegroups. It was working well for a while but then it stopped working. In the course of trouble shooting the issue I found I could map network drives as \\192.168.1.117\music.mp3 but not as \\desktop\music.mp3. In the course of debugging that I tried pinging desktop and found that ping responded saying it was pinging desktop.rr.com and the IP address of desktop.rr.com was a timewarner owned IP address. So I instituted the host file. Perhaps I should back that out and see if things break.

Perhaps my ISP is messing things up by returning a valid DNS answer for desktop.

[dzero]

Perhaps my ISP is messing things up by returning a valid DNS answer for desktop.
It shouldn't be going out to the wan. If you can't see the computers under 'network' in Windows explorer, something is wrong.

[si_blakely]

This is probably your ISP DNS being set up with wildcard response. This means that any DNS queries that should fail to resolve are sent to a landing page that generates advertising revenue for the ISP. It is a failure to comply to internet standards.

What this does is prevents name lookups from falling through to Broadcast WINS name resolution on a DNS failure. Local Host file lookups occur first (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/172218). You may be able to fix this by changing the resolving DNS. You could change the DNS on all your computers to a standards compliant one (OpenDNS or GoogleDNS would be options). You could also do this just on your router, so the client PCs use the router DNS and that uses a better DNS than the ISP one.

I thought there was a way to set WINS over DNS lookups, but I can't seem to find it for Windows 7.

I still contend that a properly configured DNS/DHCP server on your router would solve this problem somewhat faster, but it isn't how things are for you. Good luck.

Si

[gazpacho]

Thanks again for the replies. lappy1 cannot connect to desktop if desktop is not in the host file. In explorer I see desktop and a list of shared libraries in the panel to the left but when I try and look at the shared libraries on desktop I get a message:

Windows cannot access \\DESKTOP\music.mp3

If I remove desktop from the host file on lappy2 sharing via homegroups works fine.

Pinging things from lappy1 and lappy2 both return the ISP machine at desktop.san.rr.com so it would appear that this has nothing to do with my homegroup issues.

Any ideas about what could be wrong with lappy1 would be appreciated.