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Q about home network and Ping

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by huoml 2 views

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I have home network (no domain) with Netgear WGT624 wirelss router. I have two desktops, both XPPro, a Linux (ubuntu) desktop connected by ethernet cable and a laptop (XPHome) connected wirelessly. Netgear hands out IP addresses as it is DHCP server too.

When I look at router's 'attached devices' I see ALL PC's connected and the device name shows the names of all PCs.

I can ping ALL windows PCs by the devicename and IP address from any of the Windows PCs.

I can only ping ALL PCs by ip address from ubuntuPC.

I cannot ping ubuntuPC by its name from any of the winodws PC.

I am just starting to use ubuntu.

I want to be able to ping by name - the ubuntu pc.

What should I check? on which PC?

any help would be appreciated.

thanx

9 replies

by nicknielsen

The three Windows PCs are probably all using the Client for Windows Networks for name translation. The client is not supported (that I know of) in Linux.

It may be possible to find a NetBIOS client for Ubuntu that will allow you to ping by name. Keep in mind that NetBIOS may make your network less secure. Another, more complex, solution is to configure a local DNS server to provide name translation on your intranet.

Barring either of these, you may have to resign yourself to pinging to and from your Ubuntu PC using only IP addresses.

by choppit

Three things you could do.

Install and enable a Samba server on Ubuntu.

Assign static addresses or DHCP by reservation and add to the hosts file on each PC.

As above but use a DNS server.

by huoml

I am trying to sort out the way name resolution works.

I thought DNS would resolve the name to IP and the router being DNS server would be able to resolve. May be the assumption, on my part, that router is a DNS server is flawed.

Q: (choppit)
How would installing SAMBA server on ubuntu PC help in pinging by name from windows PC?

once again thanx Nick and choppit.

-H

by choppit

Two ways;

1) SAMBAs nmbd can reply to NetBIOS broadcasts.

2) SAMBA can be configured to provide WINS.

Both are native to Windows and provide name resolution services.

by huoml

but I did not see your reply until few minutes ago (more than three days later!).

by nicknielsen

Name resolution is used to determine the destination IP address for a URL. The DNS converts names to IP addresses, but your DNS server is mostly provided by your ISP. Your router is probably only providing DHCP service (assigning IP addresses).

The Wikipedia links below offer more information about DNS and DHCP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Host_Configuration_Protocol

This link at HowStuffWorks provides a good overview of internet infrastructure, plus links to other articles.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-infrastructure.htm

by triathlete1981

you can connect to the web with the ubuntu pc and through any other pc. so what you can't ping? big woop.

but if you want to do something pointless anyway...

add the ubuntu pc to the hosts files and identify computer names to ip addresses. on a small home network like that, yeah, the router acts as a dhcp server handing out 192.168 ips, but it's small enough that the ips handed out for each computer will most likely never change.

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