I have a question I want to setup an internal domain at home. Currently i have 2 machines running Mandrake 10, I Laptop running Mandrake 10 an Xbox which are all connected into a Netgear Router which is connected to Wireless Modem providing Internet access.

Currently my router is performing the task of DHCP server as it is the only device that is always on. Now I have been googling like crazy but can't seem to find a simple awnser or example to achieve what i desire.

Instead of referencing each machine by its IP address I want to do it via machine names. I read that entering Machinename Ip pairs in /etc/hosts may do it but I am not sure that each machine will get the same IP everytime it boots and I can see a setting in my router to perform this.


To me it seems like a fairly easy thing to do but can't find any info anywheres.

Any help is appreciated.

You can set up a server with ISC bind and dhcp, that dhcp is a little more flexible and there is a way to always assign the same IP address to a given computer, based on its hardware ethernet id. Then your name server "bind" will resolve the ip address to host name for the systems in your network and you won't need hosts files.

I don't really understand why computer savvy people use DHCP for both their machines on a network that never changes.

If you only have a handful of machines, just set them all up with static IPs and make out the host files accordingly. DHCP is meant for bigger networks where people are connecting to networks they know nothing about and the administrators don't want to have to keep track of all the static IPs they've handed out. That, and DHCPs integration into [some] DNS servers make it a good choice for networks that change often, or have many many client computers.

As for the suggestion of installing a server and putting BIND and DHCPd on it -- This is a *lot* of work (and possibly expense) to achieve what the poster wants. Static IPs and hosts files and the whole thing can be done in about 15 minutes.