[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] network discovery tools

[Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>]

On 2011-05-25, Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:

> There must be a number of people who post here that have had to do
> this problem.
>
> Discover the addresses of computers on a home network that have
> connected by way of DHCP.  For example: Several wireless connections.
>
> I've used static IPs for around 10 yrs, always seemed handier for
> things like ssh between home lan computers. 
>
> But recently started using DHCP for wireless connections.  It must be
> such a popular method for some reason.
>
> But when you do it that way, and say want to VNC or ssh or the like to
> something connected by a dhcp serving WAP then how do you find the
> address?

The best thing to do is to use a DHCP server and DNS server that are
"connected" somehow.  Then hostnames "just work".  Or you can
statically assign IP addresses in the DHCP server so that DHCP clients
always get hard-wired IP addresses that match up with the /etc/hosts
file on the DNS server.

I use OpenWRT for WAP, DNS, and DHCP, and it all pretty much "just
works".  When a DHCP client is assigned an IP address, the DNS server
knows about it and you can access it by it's hostname just the way you
would with a static setup.

For various reasons, I assign static IP addresses to a number of
devices, but I do it via the DHCP server's configuration, not by
configuring each individual device.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Did an Italian CRANE
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