I am using a dhcp server and nat featured offer by a netgear router to hook up my home network.
but I want to be able to ping other computer using their hostname...I can do that by specifying in /etc/hosts...but what if their ip changed when lease is renewed?
Is there a way that dhcpd is smart enough to ask the router the current ip and hostname that the ip is assigned to?
In fact, is there way for dhcpd to autometically update list of DNS from router? Right now, I am specifying and wonder what happen if my dsl connection restarts and DNS ip is changed...

Are you running a DNS internally withing your network?


By default dhcpd takes the last lease it had. you should notice that over time, none of hte IPs on your network ever change....

I have actually noticed that IP does change over time...when the router decided it's time to renew and some of the computer is not docked (say, a laptop)...it will skip assigning ip to them...
another thing is that I don't know how the router keeps DNS ip, but I have a dynamic ip dsl account, from time to time, the DNS ip changes when I read the router config. page.