[LUGSB] Question about FTP.

[Benjamin Kudria]

On Saturday, March 03 2007, JST wrote:
> Thank you everyone who responded.
>
> One other question.  Right now, I talk to all of my home computers using
> their internal ip address.  Now, in the windows paradigm every system
> can be set to use a NetBIOS name, but if I wanted to do something like
> that in a UNIX way, I have to run a DNS server right?  So laptop1.home,
> desktop3.home, and so on can be used as identifiers?  Or can that be
> done without running a DNS server?  They all grab an IP using DHCP, and
> so it keeps changing, and is annoying.  So is typing in the dotted
> decimal addresses.

Ok, for this, you'd either have to have static IP addresses, and either 
maintain your own hosts file, or set up a DNS server with static mappings.  
However, if you'd like to remain using DHCP, you'd have to configure your 
DHCP server and your DNS server to talk to each other - this is possible 
using ISC's DHCP and DNS servers (ISC DHCP and BIND), but it wasn't fun, as I 
remember.  Bind may be a bit too much for a simple home network.

I actually recommend dnsmasq - it'll do DHCP and (cached) DNS for you, and the 
two components will talk to each other.  It's also pretty easy to set up.

-Benjamin Kudria