Afternoon all!

I've succesfully set up a DHCP server in my house (it's only serving 5 computers, but twas educational!). Next step is to be able to access the other computers by their hostnames, as well as their IP's.

Is this a samba or a named solution????

Cheers

glj

Samba is for connecting to MS Windows shares.
What you can do are two things:
1) you can setup a DNS server on your local LAN - it would be a very educational project for sure.

2) you can add the 5 computers to the /etc/hosts file of each of the 5 computers and make up a hostname for every one of them.

The problem with option #2 is that you'll have to keep the /etc/hosts files synced on 5 computers and if you make a change, you have to make that change on all computers. A real nightmare especially if your network grows in time.

Number 1 is a lot better; just one central server and every one of your computers will use your DNS server for name lookups. Change once, and be done with it.

Helo!

I mentioned SAMBA because it can act as a WINS server, which seems to be what I want to do!

Having thought, I will want to set-up a DNS server (the hosts file solution is way to quick and dirty ) if for no other reason than just for the experience, but I was wondering if setting up a WINS server will be a quick solution so that the network is up to full functionality (i.e. the peeps won't have to access anything by IP) until I get around to finally doing everything the DNS way! On the other hand, will setting up a WINS server be just as much hassle???

Cheers

glj

i'm assuming that those 5 machines are running some kind of MS Windows flavour? If so WINS would be something you could use yes. Samba would work too using it's nmbd in that case.