[ILUG] Is a fqdn really necessary?

[Conor Wynne]

> Conor Wynne wrote:
>
>> Not necessary, but desirable.
>> If you have no name resolution (DNS/WINS for samba/windows), then you
>> will
>> have an inneficient LAN. There will be loads of broadcasts polluting
>> your
>> network and strange delays when accessing shares.
>
> Does this mean I should set samba up as a wins server?, given the
> Netgear dg834

Netgear 834 is a DSL router, which will uses DNS (client) so that you can
resolve names to IP on the interweb.

Your service provider has no knowledge of the machines names inside your
network, and should not know either.

You can (or should) have you own little internal DNS for your own LAN.
WINS was good for NT4 / Win9x boxes in the good old days. XP uses DNS for
name resolution, and if there is none it defaults to broadcasts.

> (Both boxes at the moment connect to  the web & each other through
> Netgear DG843 setup as dhcp server. Don't believe it supplies hostnames,
> just ip)

This is no good for _local_ name resolution - you will find that some
machines get hostnames incorrectly identified. You should disable the
netgears DHCP server, and setup your own for internal use. (I would advise
using TWO NICs in the "server" for this)

Else maintain hosts files on the doze and linux boxes.
It will do the same job.

Hope this helps,
Conor.