Hello everyone,

I have a small home network of Linux and Windows machines connected to a Linksys router (BEFSR81) for Internet access over DSL.

The router is setup as a DCHP server and all of my client machines can get IP addresses at startup.

My problem is that the Linux machines are not having their hostnames registered with the router and this causes several problems as the Linux network programs try to startup.

I can always set the Linux machines to use static addresses, but I'd prefer to keep everything under DCHP.

I'm hoping that it's just a matter of editing some configuration files and would appreciate any help.

Thank you,

Trevor

PS

One of the machines runs Redhat 7.2 and two others run Redhat 5.1, including an ancient 80486/33 with 32MB of RAM.

Laugh as you will, but that old relic still pulls its weight!

I'm guessing this problem has not always existed, is the router the new addition to the mix?

Hello,

The router is recent and the "first" time I've tried connecting everything via DHCP.

Prior to this, I had static addresses for everything and had to maintain /etc/hosts files on Linux (and Windows) machines.

Trevor

So everything works fine, but your router does not register the hostnames of it's linux dhcp clients but it *does* register the hostnames of it's windows clients? What does /etc/sysconfig/network show?

btw, I'm not laughing, I still run slackware on a 486dx2/40 w/28mb of ram and 256mb drive.

/etc/sysconfig/network contains two lines:

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME="webman"

The DCHP client table on the router shows an entry added as soon as the linux box brings up interface eth0, but the Client Hostname column is blank.

T

Is this table on the router intended to allow you to assign a hostname via dhcp *from* the router to the machine?

If the answer is yes, take a look at the man page for dhcpcd, specifically, the -H and possibly the -D options, beginning around line 63. Actually, it's short so I'll post it:

-D Forces dhcpcd to set domainname of the host to the domainname
option supplied by DHCP server.

-H Forces dhcpcd to set hostname of the host to the hostname option
supplied by DHCP server. By default dhcpcd will NOT set host-
name of the host to the hostname option received from DHCP
server.

does this look like what you're trying to accomplish?

Hi,

My belief is that the DHCP function of the router also provides a rudimentary nameserver function so that I can ping, telnet, and ftp to my machines using their hostnames instead of their (dynamic) addresses.

The DHCP client table on the router has three columns: hostname, IP address, and MAC address.

It looks as if the client computer supplies its hostname and MAC address, the router assigns the next allocatable IP address, and all three values are put into the table on the router.

If the hostnames of the Windows clients are showing up but not those of the Linux clients then one of two things is happening:

1) Linux is not passing the hostname as part of the DHCP request or,

2) the router is not accepting the value passed by Linux

Maybe static IP addresses for the Linux boxes is the way to go.

Thank you for responding,

Trevor