hostname issues
 

Hello,

Here's the problem. I have a wireless router at home, which acts as the primary name server as well. I'm using DHCP. Here is a sequence of troublesome commands:

$ hostname
diwaker

$ hostname -i
hostname: Unknown host

$ host diwaker
Host diwaker not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

$ host 172.16.1.33
33.1.16.172.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer diwaker.gateway.2wire.net.

$ cat /etc/resolve.conf
; generated by /sbin/dhclient-script
search gateway.2wire.net
nameserver 172.16.0.1

As I understand, the DNS has an entry, but host is still giving an error. Any ideas?

Diwaker

eeeh diwaker is your machine hostname, right?
Remember that your router only do request to your ISP dns server, it doesn't contain any zone or configuration that may lead him to you. And since diwaker.gateway.2wire.net probably doesn't exist in your ISP database, it can't find you.

Well thats not entirely true. I think the router maintains a local DNS as well. I have another machine called florence with exactly the same configuration, and all the commands I wrote earlier work fine for it.

eeeh ok, weird tool... maybe the router may be configurated to hold your hostname or find your hostname in NetBios (you knowm, Windoze share of Linux Samba) packets. Take a look at the user manual of your router, there should be explaination somwhere in it.