[LUGSB] Question about FTP.

[Michael F. Lamb]

> Sometimes
> you can share folders on one system and they just refuse to appear on
> other windows machines... but eventually do after a few minutes.

When I've had similar problems, I've suspected that it's because the 
network switch (not a hub) that I've got all the machines plugged into 
doesn't do network broadcasts in the way Samba/SMB likes. IIRC using a 
hub rather than a switch made Samba behave less strangely. OTOH I never 
did figure it out completely and it's been a long time since I've had to 
use SMB.

> They all grab an IP using DHCP, and
> so it keeps changing, and is annoying.

Who runs the DHCP server? Do you get your address from campus, from an 
ISP, or do you run a DHCP server?

> So is typing in the dotted decimal addresses.

DNS and DHCP servers are tedious to administrate, too. The laziest way 
I've found is to use my network router/switch, which does NAT and DHCP, 
to assign all my machines a static, private IP address. Then set up an 
appropriate /etc/hosts file on every machine so you don't have to type 
dotted quads.

I do wish that there existed a small, simple-to-administer program that 
does DNS serving/caching and DHCP services for lazy people with a few 
machines on a tiny network.

If getting a router is out of the question, and you've no control over 
your IP addresses, you could build some scripts that automatically 
update all your /etc/hosts files. (Assuming that your addresses don't 
all change at once. An account with no-ip.org for your server might help 
with that.)

Linux supports Apple's auto-discovery 'Rendezvous' protocol too, in the 
form of 'avahi,' but I don't know much about it. Might be worth some 
Googling. I know I've built a linux-based iTunes playlist-server thing 
that magically shows up on all the Macs on the LAN using a tool that 
talks to avahi.