[kwlug disc.] DHCP registering to DNS?

[Ilguiz Latypov]

On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 11:01:37PM -0500, Unsolicited at gto.net wrote:
> Windows has dynamic DNS (let alone Active Directory), where DHCP
> handing out an address will have DHCP register the new name/ip
> pair to the DNS server.

I'd set up Samba on each machine so that their names are visible
via NetBIOS, as you suggested.  

DHCP clients can broadcast their host names to identify themselves
to the DHCP server.  The latter would be able to assign the
clients IP addresses based on a table.  It is possible to generate
the server table periodically based on NetBIOS broadcasts, but I
haven't tried that.  

Finally, DNS can obtain the address-to-name map from DHCP.  There
is a simple dnsmasq[1] package combining DHCP, local DNS and DNS
forwarding.

It is possible to avoid mirroring of host names between NetBIOS
and DNS by giving the NetBIOS mechanism the first priority in the
local network's name resolution.  The name service switch
mechanism can be configured in /etc/nsswitch.conf on every
workstation so that NetBIOS requests will be performed before DNS
ones.

I've heard of newer, less loaded mechanisms of name advertising
and registration in LAN.  According to documentation, multicast
DNS[2] doesn't require an administration service.

> And remind me ... what does one use to see the list of hosts on
> the local network?

The nmblookup command with the quoted asterisk as a parameter
seems to perform some NetBIOS search for workstations around, but
I don't know if this is the right tool.

> nmblookup "*"

> his Windows hosts were getting a DHCP address, they don't see
> all the machines on the network listed.

I only have few parameters enabled in section "[global]" of
smb.conf.  Perhaps, some of them are still redundant.

> workgroup = YOUR_WORKGROUP
> netbios name = YOUR_MACHINE
> interfaces = YOUR_LAN_INTERFACES
> lm announce = yes
> lm interval = 900
> guest ok = yes
> security = user
> encrypt passwords = true
> passdb backend = tdbsam

-- 
Ilguiz

[1] Dnsmasq.  http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/doc.html

[2] How does Zeroconf compare with Viiv/DLNA/DHWG/UPnP?
    http://www.zeroconf.org/ZeroconfAndUPnP.html