localhost name error with linux machines

Question

CASE 1:

I have a Ubuntu machine with name midhun.local I can access this in **http://midhun.local/**svn ...

But its can't access from other machines(both Windows and Linux) through this host name. But it works with **http://192.168.1.192/**svn

CASE 2:

I have a another machine(windows) having the host-name myname:555 In this case i can access https://myname:555/svn from other windows machines with the same URL. But if am trying to access from the a Linux machine it will not work with the same URL instead of that https://192.1.168.111:555/svn will work.

How can I solve the problem. I need to access via the same name from cross domain. How is it possible in LAN

Thanks in advance!!

Answer 1

You need to setup a local DNS server. In case 1, 'midhun.local' is in /etc/hosts which is why it's resolving for that machine only. Case 2 is due to the windows machines picking up the NetBIOS names, but the linux machine wont.

The solution to both cases is a local DNS server and zone.

Answer 2

Domain names that are not shared via a DNS server, will not be known to other machines. What you can do, is edit the /etc/hosts file on the other machines, and make it have lines like:

192.168.1.192 midhun.local

That will make the know to the machine which has such a hosts file.

See also:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/637994/can-i-use-the-etc-hosts-file-to-configure-an-alias

Answer 3

I've had such problems because of the domain suffix .local, which is somewhat specially handled. What helped was to change /etc/nsswitch.conf: You can read about the whole process on launchpad - if you're just interested in the solution:

Change /etc/nsswitch.conf from

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4

(or whatever it is currently configured as) and remove [NOTFOUND=return] or place dns prior to [NOTFOUND=return].

Answer 4

as rodjek said, you need t set up your NetBIOS server

Try out nmbd on your linux machine, if you want to set up a windows NetBios on your linux server. or if you are already running a DNS server, have a entry in its records mapped to your linux machine.

Answer 5

You need a local DNS, in order to connect the IP addresses to host names in your local network. Either you set up a local DNS server, or edit some files on each and every computer on your network. On Ubuntu this file is the /etc/hosts file. On Windows XP, search in the Windows system folder for \system32\drivers\etc\hosts. For a few number of computer, editing the hosts files is definitely the simple way.

Answer 6

computers do not know the names, unless you provide computers with the facility to resolve those names to numbers. On a grand scale this is done using domain name service, DNS. for your network it is probably overkill, instead you can write names and addresses to which they should resolve into /etc/hosts file. Windows machines have a similar file but I would do not know what is called.

however if you have a decent router, it may have domain name server with a simple interface.

The reason why Windows machines can see each other is because they have another protocol used for communicating on the local network, called NetBIOS. You can make your UNIX machine participate in NetBIOS network if you install Samba. however it may require some tweaking, depending on UNIX machine and version of Samba you using.

you really should pose this question on server fault.

Answer 7

I've had such problems because of the domain suffix .local, which is somewhat specially handled. What helped was to change /etc/nsswitch.conf: You can read about the whole process on launchpad - if you're just interested in the solution:

Change /etc/nsswitch.conf from

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4

(or whatever it is currently configured as) and remove [NOTFOUND=return] or place dns prior to [NOTFOUND=return].

(Note that this is a duplicate question). As the question author here is a registered user, I'm repeating my answer from there)

Answer 8

mDNS (also known as zeroconf or bonjour)can help - that is actually what the .local domainis reserved for I think. Linux and mac can definately use mDNS, I assume windows can. Actually I think Apple do a bonjour implementation for windows, though I am not sure how full featured it is - it is/was distributed to allow zeroconf itunes library sharing) However I think you need all your machines to be on the same network segment for it to work.