Peter - thanks for the very nice summary and explanation. Yes, DDNS looks good. I'll try it later today. - Richard
-----Original Message----- From: poeml@poeml.de [mailto:poeml@poeml.de]On Behalf Of poeml@cmdline.net Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 10:29 AM To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: [SLE] SuSE Pro 9.1 - DNS and DHCP interaction
On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 11:40:10PM -0700, Richard Mixon (qwest) wrote:
I am a noobie when it comes to configuring DNS - some guidance is appreciated.
I am reading the DNS info in the 9.1 administration guide. It talks about setting up zone files where one ends up hardcoding the IP addresses for each hostname on the network. That seems to defeat the purpose of DHCP though.
No, that is a misunderstanding. You would in fact put IP addresses and their names into the zone files, but list _names_ only in the DHCP server configuration. (The DHCP server automatically does the necessary lookups.)
Your dhcpd.conf doesn't need to list any (server) hostnames _at all_.
The DNS zone files would be the primary repository of the name/address allocations.
Nevertheless, to associate fixed hostnames to clients you still need to tell the DHCP server some identifier that is coupled to a name (usually MAC address), and you would need to add hostnames to the DNS zone manuall.
That's where DDNS steps in: It reduces the administrative task to nothing but entering a hostname on the client -- the DHCP server will automatically update the DNS zone for you if that new client pops up.
That's pretty elegant and very efficient. No more editing of dhcpd.conf for host statements, and no more editing of zone files, and always a working and consistent installation.
/usr/share/doc/packages/dhcp-server/DDNS-howto.txt
[...] I'm currently using a Linksys firewall as a DHCP server for my Windows clients.
I am setting up a SuSE Pro 9.1 server that will serve two main purposes: - Samba file and print sharing; - CVS source code server.
We currently only have six users. I would really like to get rid of the host files that I have been using on each server and workstation (servers Linus, workstations Windows 2000/XP). I think I need to setup a caching DNS server, plus 1 zone that identifies my local network servers and workstations.
Oh. Host files. You'll NEVER get them consistent. Really, get rid of them for good. :)
But as I said above, that seems like it defeats the purpose of DHCP. What am I missing.
Thank you - Richard
Peter