Can ping by IP but not by hostname

gillesdutertre · 08-22-2003, 11:38 AM

Hi,
I'm a newbie in Unix. I have a unix server (RedHat 7.3) on the same network than some windows machines. I want to share some files from this server, so trying to configure Samba.
After running Samba, I can see my machine on the network but when i double click on it, a message says that the machine cannot be found.

I also tried to ping the server from a windows client. A ping with the IP address is ok, but not with the hostname.

The ifconfig results seem ok.
The hostname command returns the good name.

Can anyone help me?

yocompia · 08-22-2003, 12:15 PM

i haven't any experience w/ samba, but i know that if you can't ping the internet by hostname (not IP), it's a DNS issue. make sure you have your DNS server IPs set on the windows computer.

btw, what do you mean by server? are you serving webpages? and isn't RedHat linux and not unix (just being a bitch about jargon

)?

what is your network setup? the position of the linux box serving webpages is important for determining why you can't ping the domain name.

electron_lemon · 08-23-2003, 01:25 AM

> ... by hostname (not IP), it's a DNS issue. ...

I think the poster means the Samba hostname, not a FQDN DNS name.

I would suggest double-checking all the settings on your Samba server and making sure that it knows that it's the master server (I'm not sure exactly what the setting's called), because once it knows, It'll send out broadcast pakets letting the windows machines know that they should ask your Samba server.

Alternatively, I think there's a way to manually tell the windows machines what the master server is, but I'm not going to explain how, because I don't know myself.

If the samba server's configuration files are too confising, there's a really good Webmin module for configuring Samba servers. I'm sure it'll be very helpful to newbies. Check it out.

gillesdutertre · 08-23-2003, 10:45 AM

Well,

I say my RedHat computer is a server cause i use it as a file server only. I don't think i need a DNS cause it's only used in my local network, the windows computer only connect to internet and the DNS is correctly configured.

I know this can work without configuring any DNS server in my Linux machine. The only thing I need is to be able to connect from a window computer to this file server.

ppuru · 08-23-2003, 11:23 AM

I am sure you must have a WINS server somewhere on your windows network.

you can set samba to access thsi Wins server by editing the

WINS address =

tag in /etc/samba/smb.conf.

This will however not help you do a ping using the netbios name.
But if you do a

smbmount //pcname/share

the pcname will be resolved to the correct ipaddress.

you can check this out using the nmblookup utility.

angelrod · 08-23-2003, 11:47 AM

I think the problem is that you don't have de "nmbd" daemon running. In red hat you can check it by typing 'service smb status' you should see both daemons running (smbd and nmbd).

gillesdutertre · 08-25-2003, 02:18 AM

I already checked that

When i do nmblookup <hostname>, it gives me the good IP address

angelrod · 08-25-2003, 02:20 PM

OK. Take a look at this:

http://www.computing.net/linux/wwwbo...rum/22214.html

gillesdutertre · 09-01-2003, 07:59 AM

Well,

First, sorry for answering that late, I've been quite busy last week.
I want to thank all those who answered to this post cause now it works perfectly. I had several problems to be resolved. As newbie, i didn't know what rpm to install for samba, and only did half of the job, but i also had a firewall configuration problem...

Now everything's fixed and works.

Thanx