Not resolving local ip's on f16

[teraquad]

Hi,
My f16 machine will not resolve ip's to my local dhcp network. It will find outside ip's with no problems and i can add host names and ip's to the /etc/hosts file and it will work. But everything else is dhcp so that is not a soloution.
In the past i have found nsswitch to be the culprit in similar problems. I have tried many variations on the hosts section of that file but to no avail.

Thanks!






I started this as a samba problem in the general forum but it looks like a network problem at this point.

[droidhacker]

What do you mean by "resolving IP's"? IP addresses need no resolution. Resolution is the process of finding the IP address for a specific NAME, and requires either a hosts table, or a DNS server. A DHCP server does not provide DNS lookup.

nsswitch is not your problem. If you're adding host names and ip addresses to your hosts file and can subsequently look those up successfully, then nsswitch is correctly directing host lookups to the hosts file. If you are able to look up internet domain names, then nsswitch is also correctly directing host lookups to some DNS server.

What are you using as a DHCP server?
What are you using as a DNS server?

[teraquad]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply!

I cannot ping any machine on my local network via host name. Thus i feel that the process is failing to resolve the ip address. The ip's on the network are dynamically assigned so simply loading the hosts file seems counter productive.

Nsswitch has been critical in the past as the order in which the host section is populated determines who is first to resolve. As i am resolving ip's in the outside world it's unwise not to consider the possibility of an error there.


Thanks again.

[stevea]

Do you have a local DNS server ?
If not then how do you expect names to be resolved to these dynamically assigned IPs ?

[teraquad]

Thanks for the reply!

I don't know. how do the other 6 machines on my network know where to find each other.

Thanks!

[george_toolan]

Probably some broadcasting protocol. See http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/using_samba/ch07.html

What exactly are you trying to do?

What does your network look like?

Configuring seven machines with static ip addresses shouldn't be too difficult or just configure the DHCP server in your router to always assign the same ip address to a machine (identified by its mac hardware address).

[teraquad]

Thanks for the reply!

My network is as follows:

5 ip cams (fixed ip)
2 fc17 boxes (dhcp)
1 fc16 box (dhcp)
2 windows xp boxes (dhcp)
1 vista machine (dhcp)
2 NAS iomega (fixed ip)
2 wireless g/n routers (fixed ip)
3 direct tv boxes (dhcp)
2 routers 1 acts as a switch only (fixed ip)
1 samsung tv (dhcp)

All of these items, save one, get along happily with samba being the main file sharing mechanism.
This one fc17 machine is a fresh install plus SAMBA that will only ping local machines via ip. It knows nothing of host names unless they are outside of my network. The samba server, client, or whatever simply doesn't see this machine nor does this machine see them.

There is an exception. The fc16 machine occasionally appears on the network servers list. and when it does, it is perfectly workable. I cannot nail down the circumstance that recreates this anomaly.

I hesitate to simply go with fixed ip's as it breaks from the network standard i have set from the beginning. And will likely cause me problems in the future. Further this machine was also quite happy when i had it loaded with fc16 and It seems to indicate that i have missed something.

In the past, i have installed samba only to find, after a great deal of trouble, the nsswitch file caused just such a problem. This was because the hosts section of the file was not ordered correctly, causing the dns server to lookup ip's first. This current problems presents the exact behavior as that one did. which is why i mention it.

I really do not know how the computers mentioned above find one another. But all except this one are working properly, samba and all.


Thanks for your patience.

[droidhacker]

Originally Posted by teraquad

Thanks for the reply!

My network is as follows:

5 ip cams (fixed ip)
2 fc17 boxes (dhcp)
1 fc16 box (dhcp)
2 windows xp boxes (dhcp)
1 vista machine (dhcp)
2 NAS iomega (fixed ip)
2 wireless g/n routers (fixed ip)
3 direct tv boxes (dhcp)
2 routers 1 acts as a switch only (fixed ip)
1 samsung tv (dhcp)

All of these items, save one, get along happily with samba being the main file sharing mechanism.
This one fc17 machine is a fresh install plus SAMBA that will only ping local machines via ip. It knows nothing of host names unless they are outside of my network. The samba server, client, or whatever simply doesn't see this machine nor does this machine see them.

There is an exception. The fc16 machine occasionally appears on the network servers list. and when it does, it is perfectly workable. I cannot nail down the circumstance that recreates this anomaly.

I hesitate to simply go with fixed ip's as it breaks from the network standard i have set from the beginning. And will likely cause me problems in the future. Further this machine was also quite happy when i had it loaded with fc16 and It seems to indicate that i have missed something.

In the past, i have installed samba only to find, after a great deal of trouble, the nsswitch file caused just such a problem. This was because the hosts section of the file was not ordered correctly, causing the dns server to lookup ip's first. This current problems presents the exact behavior as that one did. which is why i mention it.

I really do not know how the computers mentioned above find one another. But all except this one are working properly, samba and all.


Thanks for your patience.

Micro**** uses a bunch of noisy broadcast protocols to advertise itself to itself. Not a surprise that this nonsense isn't working as you want it.

Set yourself up a DNS server and everything will work properly.

[teraquad]

Thanks for the reply,

I don't really leave one machine on consistently. I assume that would make a difference to the dns server or servers. I am not sure what to do at this point. Mr. Toolan gave me a great deal of information to study. So i will be a while digesting it. It is my goal to understand what is going on here as it has affected every samba installation i have done in the past couple of years.

Thanks again for your help. I will put it to good use.

[DBelton]

Check out your router config. My router has a way for me to add names to it's table, so that if any machine on the local network looks up that name, it will return the local network address. On mine, the network address must exist when you assign a name to it (meaning the machine must be up and running), but it keeps the name even after you shut off the machine, so you don't have to keep adding it back to the table.

Some routers have this functionality, some don't. Check and see if yours does.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by droidhacker

What do you mean by "resolving IP's"? IP addresses need no resolution

Hmm - actually IP addresses have to be resolved into MAC addresses on any 02 media - wifi or wired enet.

But each node on a LAN resolves it's own address.

--

What it in /etc/resolv.conf on a working vs non-working box ?

[teraquad]

Why do post keep disappearing from this thread?

[lightman47]

- you noticed that too ...