I'm setting up a LAMP production server for the first time. When I installed Ubuntu server edition, I selected to install Samba.

My idea was to be able to easily access the server's files on the LAN using Windows. All was well and I could ping/ssh between Windows and the Ubuntu server without any problems using the host names.

Later, I became concerned that running Samba on a production server might introduce security issues. Therefore, I used apt to purge Samba.

Now I am unable to ping/ssh between the Windows machines and the server using the host names. It only works if I use the IP address.

Two questions:

1.) Is it a security risk to run Samba on a production LAMP server?

2.) How do I get back to being able to use host names without installing Samba?

Thanks,
David

Do you have entries for the Linux machines in "\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"?

I understand that I could use the hosts files on both systems, but I'd really like to let the automatic methods deal with associating IP addresses with host names.

Samba would be a nice solution if I could be sure that it didn't introduce security issues.

Thanks,
David

The most reliable method I've used is to use dynamic DNS.

When the machine asks for it a dhcp lease it sends the dhcp server it's own host name, once the IP has been assigned, the dhcp server then sends the hostname and ip address to your name server and the name server dynamically updates it's zone record(s) for your LAN. The dhcp server sends a request to remove the mapping when the dhcp lease expires.

This isn't something that is supported on most consumer home routers. I would expect the router orientated distros/OSs support it, for example pfsense or m0n0wall. My router is simply FreeBSD and is set up in the describe way.

The easiest way is just to alter your hosts file, unless you have more than about 5 computers

Looks like a local DNS server is in my future.

Thanks for the help.