I've got a small business network. We have a few Windows machines, a Linux-based NAS box, and a Linux box on the network. Everything is connected to the Internet through a DSL router (Netopia 3000).
I set it up so the Netopia is the DHCP server.
The problem is that I can only reach the Linux box by IP address, not hostname. When we installed CentOS on that box we picked the option to report the hostname to the DHCP server. But it doesn't work; I can't ping the box by name.
This is odd, because the Linux-based NAS box (a DLink DNS-323) shows up in Windows Explorer just fine, and I can ping it.
What do I need to do to get the Linux box to show up?
Best Answer
Do you know anything about DNS? That's the Domain Name Service, it translates names into IP addresses. If you have a DNS server currently internal on your network, you need to ensure that your clients are using it, and that the Linux server has an entry in it.
If not, set one up.
If you can't, you're going to have to update the HOSTS file on every machine in your network, and then update it every time you add or change a hostname.