DHCP client configuration on FreeBSD

Beech Rintoul beech at alaskaparadise.com
Sat Apr 28 17:35:01 UTC 2007


On Saturday 28 April 2007, L Goodwin said:
> --- Beech Rintoul <beech at alaskaparadise.com> wrote:
> > On Friday 27 April 2007, L Goodwin said:
> > > When I ran the DHCP client configuration tool on
> > > FreeBSD 6.2, it added a new hostname variable to
> > > /etc/rc.conf below existing the hostname var (it
> > > did not remove or comment-out the old hostname
> > > variable).
> > > The NEW hostname includes the ISP's domain name:
> > >   hostname="dhcppc0.<ISP domain name here>"
> > >
> > > This hostname differs from the hostname listed in
> > > the router's DHCP table "dhcpp0" (no domain name).
> > > It also shows unique IP addresses and MAC
>
> addresses
>
> > > for all hosts on the LAN.
> > >
> > > I can ping the IP address assigned to the FreeBSD
> > > system, but ping and net lookup fail when its
> > > hostname is specified (both with and without the
> > > domain name).
> > >
> > > Questions:
> > > 1) Why did the hostname get changed (does not
> > > occur for Windows clients)?
> > > 2) Why does the hostname in /etc/rc.conf contain
> > > the DNS domain name?
> >
> > FreeBSD uses the FQDN (fully qualified domain name)
> > as the hostname.
> > Example: hostname= "yourmachine.yourdomain.com"
> >
> > > 3) How do I resolve this problem?
> >
> > Unless you provide your own DNS that resolves your
> > internal network and supersede dhclient with your
> > domain name,  DHCP will use the domain and DNS from
> > your provider. Your windows boxes point to your
> > isp's nameservers which have no records of your
> > server or it's address. Therefore it can't resolve
> > your machine's hostname.
> > If you do provide your own internal name service you
> > will also need to edit /etc/dhclient.config (see man
> > dhclient.conf), and point your windows boxes to your
> > DNS instead of your isp's. You can use a fictitious
> > domain name internally, just make sure that the
> > domain doesn't actually exist on the net.
> > You can also use the FreeBSD IP address as a domain
> > name on your windows boxes to connect.
>
> Is there a way to a) make dhclient use hostname
> without a domain name appended, or b) make dhclient
> instruct the DHCP server to append the domain name to
> the hostname?

You're confusing windows networking with "real" networking. If all 
you're trying to do is share files with the windows boxes, just put 
the machine name as hostname and don't worry what gets appended to 
it. Samba will handle the windows part of it (machine name and 
workgroup). Windows uses a different system to identify machines on 
it's network. Don't confuse a windows "domain" with a real domain 
they are different things. On a windows network you use samba to make 
the windows boxes "think" that the FreeBSD box is one of theirs and 
share files and printers. You can find detailed how-to's on samba's 
site. There is no need to ping by hostname unless you're running a 
server on the FreeBSD box in which case you need to setup real DNS or 
just use the FreeBSD IP as the hostname from windows. 

>
> > Running  bind requires a fairly steep learning
> > curve, but there are simple nameservers in the ports
> > tree that would probably better suit your needs.
>
> Are you referring to the built-in command in bsh that
> lists/alters key bindings for the line editor?
> I don't understand what bind has to do with any of this.

I'm not talking about binding keys, what I was talking about is bind. 
That's a dns server already in the base system. If you want to freely 
resolve your machines by hostname and domain you probably need to set 
up a caching nameserver to resolve your internal network. And point 
all your machines at it.

Beech


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Beech Rintoul - Port Maintainer - beech at alaskaparadise.com
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