[olug] dynamic DNS at home

[Daniel Pfile]

My dlink lets me assign ips based on mac addresses using dhcp. Once you 
have every machine using the same ip every time just make yourself a 
master host file and download it to the other pcs with a batch file on 
bootup/crontab/manually when you need it updated. KISS.

Something like this for windows:

dim oServer
dim oFso
dim hosts

set oServer = Server.CreateObject("Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP.4.0")
set oFso = createobject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

oServer.open ("GET", "http://ip.of.main.pc/path/to/latest/hosts/file", 
false)
oServer.send

hosts = oFso.CreateTextFile("c:\\winnt\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts", 
true)
hosts.write(oServer.responseText)
hosts.close()

Adjust as needed, I didn't test it, and you may need to install msxml, 
or rewrite it. YMMV

or this for linux:
#!/bin/sh
wget http://ip.of.main.pc/path/to/latest/hosts/file > /etc/hosts

Boy, which one of those is easier to automate?

-- Daniel

On Feb 17, 2004, at 3:31 PM, <thelarsons3 at cox.net> wrote:

> Hi guys.  Here's my situation...
>
> I have a small home LAN.  Basically it's a Linksys router handling 
> DHCP, my wife's WinPC, my Linux box, and a number of other "tinker" 
> boxes that are not always online.  These other machines usually reside 
> in a closet or the basement and only come out when I am putzing with 
> one.  From time to time I fix one up nice, give it away, and get some 
> other semi-obsolete box to play with.  So it's a revolving collection.
>
> Is there some way I can automagically detect all the computers' names 
> from other computers on the network so I don't have to refer to them 
> by IP when they're online?  The Linksys doesn't do DNS, only DHCP.  
> None of my machines (even the main two) are consistently up 24/7, as 
> we'll turn them off if we think we're going to be away for an extended 
> period, so I don't think a DNS server will work.  Manually updating 
> /etc/hosts with static addresses on all those machines would be a 
> PITB.
>
> If there were a way to poll the LAN and query names from active IPs, 
> that would be great.  Does such a thing exist, is there another 
> technique I haven't thought of, or am I stuck?  If the solution 
> requires that I leave one machine up all the time I'll consider it, 
> but a script I could run from anywhere as needed would be ideal.  If 
> there are instructions somewhere just point me, but I don't know where 
> to start looking.
>
> Thanks,
> Tim
>
> -- 
> Tim & Alethea
>
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