RH7.2 dhcpcd & MAC address
 

I have a RH7.2 set-up connecting through a NTL cable modem. Two problems I have are:

1. I set up the networking through the GUI tools and it does correctly get assigned an IP dynamically, however it also gets assigned a hostname e.g. pc2-nora6-0-cust13.ntl.com (or similar). I know that dhcpcd has a switch to change this, but when is dhcpcd called (i.e. what script) during system startup?

2. Helpful NTL will only recognise one MAC per connection. How do I change the MAC for my eth0. I know(?) that ifupdate allows this, but again, when/where is this called during startup?

Any help appreciated. I am new to this so please don't think that I will have tried anything obvious!

Thanks

D

dhcpd is a server daemon for your pc to serve ip addresses to the network. Pump is the dhcp client which will talk to NTL. It is called from the ifcfg-eth~ script.

2nd... You only have 1 MAC address per card. It is a hardware based number, 1 per card.

And a couple of questions...
Your hostname is only useful if you have a registered DNS. What NTL have given you is what can be found in DNS. If anyone pings that name, they will get your pc. Do you need a different name?
Are you offering information on your pc to the rest of the world?
If not, you may wish to look seriously at a firewall scripts to keep us out...

Regards,
Peter

Hi,

I will stand corrected on this, but dhcpcd is a client, pump is an alternative.

On the question of hostname, by default I have a hostname of localhost, Redhat complains at startup that it doesn't recognise the dynamic hostname I am assigned and suggests adding it to the hosts file, but the name could be different each time the dhcp lease is renewed. I don't really care what my hostname is, I just need to stop it being assigned dynamically through dhcp.

As far as the MAC goes, I need to assign a different MAC to my PC, this can easily be done in Win2k, and also in linux but i'm not sure where. I need to assign my PC NICs MAC to be the same as my laptop so that NTL will think its the same machine, otherwise dhcp refuses to give me a lease (btw the laptop and PC are never connected on a network so the duplicate MAC is not a problem).

Thanks for your help

D

Whoops, my reading glasses are drunk... missed a 'c' there...

With dhcp pppd connections, the init scripts take care of the hostname maintenance, including removal once the link is dropped. I'm assuming yours will be up and stay that way, yes? And also that NTL will reissue another lease at regular intervals...

The hostname you are given can be reverse mapped to the ip address if you get a valid dns number assigned from NTL.

The MAC question has got me beat. I've never heard of a MAC changing facility anywhere, but I'm still learning...
Cheeky buggers like me put some old hardware to use as a firewall to keep hardware under control...

Regards,
peter

Thanks for the advice on the MAC address.
The RH Network Config tool certainly shows an ability to select another MAC!!
/usr/bin/neat
I'll be buggered!
I'll have a play now!
Thanks!