Using wicd on Slackware 12.2 doesn't register host name with DNS server

lord_beavis · 10-15-2009, 11:49 PM

Hello all,

I am running Slackware 12.2 on a laptop with a Linksys WPC55AG PCMCIA wireless adapter. I can do anything network wise with the laptop I want but I can not ping it by the host name from any other PC on my network. I had previously used madwifi on a previous install of the OS for the wireless and could ping it by the hostname.

If I manually restart networking, I can use dhcpcd -h hostname wlan0 and it will register with my DNS server. Once I have to obtain a new IP address it is no longer register with DNS.

I'm sure it is a simple solution that has escaped me.

Any help is appreciated.

bogzab · 10-16-2009, 05:33 AM

I have had this problem with PCs on my home network too and it appears to me that it is always to do with entries or lack of the in /etc/hosts. If the PC that you are pinging from has a correct IP address - hostname pair for the PC you are trying to ping, all wil be fine. If the entry has an incorrect IP address, all will not be fine. If it has no entry then in my experience all is also not fine.

lord_beavis · 10-16-2009, 08:11 AM

That will work but the problem is I may not get that IP address the next time from the DHCP server.

bogzab · 10-16-2009, 09:11 AM

That's why in the end I fixed the config on my router to reserve certain addresses for the boxes that I wanted to be able to address by hostname. So they effectively have a static address on the internal LAN. Can't remember the details of how I did this, but I guess it was to do with the MAC addresses of the PC NICs.

I agree this is not the most elegant way and if you find somebody to say how this should work with dynamic addresses I will also be glad of the advice.

lord_beavis · 10-19-2009, 01:45 PM

bogzab,

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to do that.

If I could get wicd to work with dhclient instead of dhcpcd, I think that the problem would resolve itself with the proper entry in the /etc/dhclient.conf file.