hostname issues

[nipper]

I'm running RH8 and MDK9, networked together via a router. In the process of trying to set up NFS (that's a whole additional post...), I've found that I can ping my other machines and the router using the IP addresses, but can't ping the machine using the host name (i.e., I can ping 192.168.0.3, but not jonah.localdomain).

Any ideas?

[saithan]

really there is a simple and very easy fix for that issue.
just add the ip addresses and their aliases to the /etc/hosts file

each machine on the network does not have any recognition of the other machines on the network by name unless you run a dns name server in the network. By adding all the names and ip addresses to each of the machines hosts files each machine can then use the hosts files to resolve the name to an IP.
for instance:
your network:

192.168.0.1 (gateway)
192.168.0.2 (fileserver1)
192.168.0.3(fileserver2)
to the hosts files on fileserver1 and fileserver2 add:
192.168.0.2 fileserver1.localdomain fileserver1
192.168.0.3 fileserver2.localdomain fileserver2

you should then be able to call each machine by name from each machine as well as ping by ip.

hope this helps , your milage may very

[nipper]

Thanks, saithan. Worked like a dream. I had the local mschine's host entry, but not the other machines on the network.

Now, on getting NFS to work!