i have a linux box named ximian, but on my network from a different machine, can't just type "ping ximian" , have to put in my machine's ip such as "ping 192.168.1.10".

How to fix it so my machine name will match the ip (if that's the correct way to put it)? I ready tried to edit /etc/sysconfig/network, didn't seem to work

your hostname - ip resolution is host dependent and machine dependent you can edit the hosts file (win2k + or lin) in etc/hosts and a line to resolve it, or setup the networds host to resolve the name correctly..

I'm pretty sure the original poster is going
Ok, well, I am.

No scratchy heads allowed!
What he said was, you need to edit the hosts file to include the machine name and related ip addrress. That is true in Windows or Linux when you don't have a dns or wins server to do it for you.

If the other machine is a Linux box, edit the /etc/hosts file. For example....
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
192.168.0.1 computer1.workgroup computer1
192.168.0.2 computer2.workgroup computer2


If the other computer is a Windows box, edit the hosts file which can be located differently depending on the version of Windows. The easiest thing to do is search for hosts and open it up with notepad from the search results unless you know exactly where it is.
For example......
127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.0.1 computer1.workgroup
192.168.0.2 computer2.workgroup

Make sure to save that as a plain hosts file with no extensions by enclosing the name in quotes..... "hosts"

i was wondering the same thing. my question is...on my home lan, i don't have to edit any hosts files or anything, but my windows machines automatically resolve the names. why won't my linux machines do it?

at work, the linux machines automatically seem to resolve hostnames for windows machines, but i can't ping one linux machine from another by typing "ping <HOSTNAME>". none of it makes sense to me...

I'm no expert on Windows but I think they are using Netbios to resolve names. I don't think Linux does that.

Mugatu, is your win2k boxes using linux as your dns servers? if so, there's your answer. At work, it depends where the linux boxes are pointing to dns wise. (/etc/resolv.conf) If it's a windows domain, your Domain Controller (DC) is probably the DNS server as well and has the names of all your workstations on it. The linux machines probably aren't part of the domain so the DC has no knowledge of what the hostnames of the linux servers are.

There's multiple answers as to why, but there's a few possbilities.

miaviator278, Greetings from Operation: Enduring Freedom. I'll hit the other major operation in the fall. Oohrah, Marine Corps.

sorry, didn't intend confusion, thanks for clearing it up.

yes windows uses netbois by default also most companys have wins/dns servers setup to handle their intranets.

im in the same boat. take two winxp boxes, network them together (no dns/wins hosts edit) and they can ping each other by machine name.

put a lin box and and a winbox together, and they can only ping by IP address.

I've figured out how to get the windows box to ping the linux box by machine name. With samba, you can set up a netbios name (edit smb.conf, add netbios name = yourcomputername, and restart samba).

I still can't ping my windows box by machine name from linux though.

Does linux simply not work with netbios broadcasts? Do you HAVE to set up WINS or DNS, or edit the hosts file? It seems odd that you can give your box a netbios name through samba, but you can't see other netbios names without a wins server.

and when i run

# nmblookup windowsbox

it resolves to the correct ip of the win machine.

any thoughts?

thanks,

Murray

Same thing here.
At home I have two Linux boxes connected to the network of my company that uses a Win2K domain controller (dchp & dns).
The difficulty is that I'm not allowed to join the domain of my company's network. Other linux boxes on the company network that are in the domain are added to the dns by the domain controller.
I really don't want to edit /etc/hosts because I think that's a workaround, not a solution.

The best solution would be to make dig and host (and nslookup) to use wins (when configured). I'd do it myself if I knew how....