Quick DNS & DHCP question

[rkillcrazy]

Just curious really....

Why, when using the HDA for DHCP & DNS, does DHCP fill up with:

Code: Select all

h111.home.com 192.168.10.111 h112.home.com 192.168.10.112 h113.home.com 192.168.10.113 h114.home.com 192.168.10.114 ...

It's like DHCP/DNS is handing out host-names as well. In fact, when I load new Linux machines, and it asks me for a host-name, it pre-populates the field with one of those HDA-generated names. This is unlike any other DNS/DHCP server I've ever dealt with. It's confusing too, as one cannot easily distinguish between one PC/server from another by looking in DHCP.

2010-12-23
0942 EST

[bigfoot65]

I have noticed that too. What I do for my network is assign static IPs for most. Also, my Windows machines have a user friendly name set and that shows up in the DHCP area. If it is not set, then I get the H and number.

Seems like if the DHCP server can determine the hostname, it will use it otherwise assign its own. Not an expert, but that has been my experience.

[rgmhtt]

Amahi is set to pre-populate the DNS with these host names. Check out the files in:

/var/named/dynamic

Please note that Amahi does NOT run DNS chrooted. There are problems with Dynamic DNS and chrooted BIND that is SUPPOSEDLY fixed in F14 (cpg we need to check that out and maybe finally run NAMED chrooted?).

But if you give your host a name, when it gets a DHCP lease that name DYNAMICALLY replaces the default name for the duration of the lease.

Just the way it got set up.

I am really looking forward to F14 for BIND; at least F12 is MUCH better than F10 was.

[rkillcrazy]

I was just curious...it's not like it's breaking anything per se`.

I too am waiting for F14. (Any ETA on that?) Obviously all my machines (Windows and Ubuntu) have hostnames and I figured they'd show up in there. No worries though. If you figure it'll be different in the new release, I'll wait to see what happens then. Speaking of which, I'm assuming there'll be some sort of upgrade-path to the new release once it's all said and done....

2010-12-23
1114 EST

[rgmhtt]

If you have a hostname configured for a system, you should see a A record for it near the end of the hda-n2a.conf file. My XP system named 'mavis' results in the following:

$TTL 7200 ; 2 hours
Mavis A 192.168.128.5
TXT "31c506d17b2b451224a36142fd7e6fc5e2"

Of course there is still the record

h005 A 192.168.128.5

present. But in the hda-a2n.conf file there is:

$TTL 7200 ; 2 hours
5 PTR Mavis.home.htt.

So the reverse lookup works right.