On Fri 11 Apr 2025 at 05:45:47 (-0400), Dan Purgert wrote: > On Apr 10, 2025, David Wright wrote: > > > > On Thu 03 Apr 2025 at 06:55:10 (-0400), Greg Wooledge wrote: > > > Or you use mdns, which is the standard way of dealing with dynamic > > > resources on an unmanaged network. > > > > The resources stay fixed during their lifetime, and any changes that > > occur are at a glacial pace. The network is managed, by me. > > > > I also don't like the names that mDNS comes up with. > > It should just be 'hostname.local'. But yeah, if the host defaults to a > weirdo name (like my printer's default of BCP[SERIALNO]), they do tend > to get a bit unwieldy.
Too right. So I set up a cups queue with a simple name, which is used by bash functions that select between portrait/landscape and 1s/2s. > > > (That doesn't mean you have to use > > > mdns, it just means that if you instead decide to do something like > > > copy hosts files around the network you're choosing to make up your > > > own solution to the inherent problems that led to dns in the first > > > place.) > > > > I can hardly take credit for inventing /etc/hosts. It's simple to set > > up, and it causes no problems here. I don't think DNS was invented for > > resolving two dozen non-hierachical names on one site. > > That's exactly what DNS was invented for. Manually managing host files > is a pain after only a few hosts. Add one machine, and you have to > update 5,10,20,[...] host files. So the last change I made was mid-November, for adding a new laptop. I only change the DHCP when all my hosts are running. I login to the router, add the reservation, and remove anything that has died since the previous change, which was, as it happens, when I installed my latest router in December 2023. I update the master file with the same changes. I then run a script that transfers the master file to the half-dozen hosts, edits the hosts own line to 127.0.1.1, and prints a diff of the old and new versions. Finally a second script does the same thing, except it overwrites all the old hosts files. > Yes, "Domain Names" do include hierarchy (e.g. "company.tld"); but > that's more an artifact that when RFC 1035 was written, we were already > seeing convergence of names for common services (mail, telnet, ftp, > etc.). Sure, but not at this site", unless you count my adding a .corp TLD to all my hostnames in 2018. (I think at the time that was to quieten exim, but smarthosts may also appreciate it.) > > > For various reasons I'd much rather configure a static IP in this > > > situation than set up a reservation on the dhcp server. Among other > > > things, in a small network the bespoke dhcp configuration is likely > > > going to cause pain that can't possibly outweigh the need to > > > reconfigure a static IP if for some strange reason it needs to change. > > > > I don't know how to configure static IPs without a DHCP server when > > there are devices that can only configure themselves by DHCP (or > > maybe mDNS, I haven't tried). But what are the pain and the strange > > reason? > > Correct -- if a device is stupidly-configured from the factory to > REQUIRE DHCP, then you need to use DHCP. Welcome to the world of consumer electronics. Their /functionality/ is certainly not stupid. > mDNS is just a simplified name resolution tool. It doesn't do host > configuration for network/netmask/gateway. No, I think it's designed just for a single network. As I said above, I've found it useful for driverless printing, but nothing else. > > > Mostly, > > > to me, this falls into a weird place in wanting to use a complex > > > solution (static dhcp reservations) without taking the relatively > > > small additional step of just providing dns. Either go all the way > > > and provide all the normal facilities (which these days are often > > > baked into the router) instead of a mash-up, or go the easy route > > > and use dynamic dhcp and mdns. > > > > Apart from configuring DNS, I don't want to have to run a dedicated > > server 24/7. And none of the 24/7 routers has had DNS capability. > > OTOH they've all had very simple interfaces for setting up static > > DHCP reservations. > > Sounds like getting a better router would be a good idea (I mean, when > the current one starts acting wonky). There are (or were) a handful of > options that could manage to update the DNS resolver when new DHCP Hosts > were added to the network (and, likewise, static entries for non-DHCP > hosts). > > Granted, these days, they may need *wrt or tomato firmwares, because the > good features always seem to be the ones that go away. :( My first router bought over here is now about 12 years old, cost $86 at Radio Shack (R.I.P), has lost its WAN port and one LAN port over the years, but is still working. It's replacement cost $38 at Walmart and is also still at work. The third one, which hosts the DHCP server, cost all of $14 at Staples (clearance). So I've got great coverage with 3 APs, and one device could die with limited degradation, so I can't say I'm in the market for yet another, and I've see no need for a DNS server here. Cheers, David.
