Small (SoHo) LAN, how to manage local DNS etc.?

[Colin Law]

On 9 October 2012 11:36, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 09, 2012 at 11:01:45AM +0100, Colin Law wrote:
>> On 9 October 2012 10:49, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
>> > What's the "Ubuntu" way to manage DNS etc. on a small Home/Office LAN?
>> >
>> > I have a small LAN running at home with, at this precise moment, eight
>> > devices on the LAN.  These comprise (usually) three or four computers
>> > running xubuntu, a windows computer, a printer, a DECT phone base
>> > station and the NAT router that connects them all to the internet.
>> >
>> > I need a manageable way to handle these by assigning IP addresses (i.e.
>> > DHCP) and providing name services (i.e. DNS) such that I can use names
>> > for the various systems.
>> >
>> > So how should one manage this sort of a system?  I can run DHCP on the
>> > NAT router but that doesn't provide DNS for the LAN so I don't get names
>> > for my systems.  How do people handle this sort of thing?  Do you just
>> > set (for example) printers up with static addresses and put them in
>> > /etc/hosts?  That's not very flexible and means that visitors can't see
>> > the printer.  Is there a better way?
>>
>> You should be able to refer to the machines by <name>.local.  So for
>> example if the machine name is piglet then piglet.local should work.
>> This is provided by avahi apparently.
>
> It doesn't actually work though, at least not on my system as at present
> set up.  I have tried on both my desktop computer and my laptop
> computer, the desktop's hostname is 'chris' the laptop's is
> 'acer-aspire':-
>
>     chris$ host chris.local
>     Host chris.local not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

What does ping chris.local show.  Also
avahi-browse -at

>     chris$
>
>     root at acer-spire# host chris.local
>     Host chris.local not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
>     root at acer-spire#
>
> Anyway I'd really prefer to call a computer 'chris' by that name rather
> than 'chris.local'.  (I have checked, the avahi-daemon is running on
> both the above machines)

Can't help that I am afraid.  Sorry.

>
>
>>                                             In addition you may find it
>> helpful to allocate fixed ip addresses to each machine so that ssh
>> does not complain if you use keys to access the machines.  Most
>> routers have a means of using dhcp but allocating a fixed address to
>> each machine based on MAC address.
>>
> That's a "specific to ssh" issue which, while significant, isn't really
> central to my requirements.

Agreed, I thought it might be helpful though.

Colin