Cannot resolve host names on local network

English Network/Internet
#1

Hi all,

am struggling with a network setup issue after converting from Ubuntu to openSUSE, and would appreciate some pointers as to what might be the cause.

I have a mac and an openSUSE box connected wirelessly to a router. From my mac, if I ping the Linux machine by both ip address and hostname “elmo.local”, I get a response. If I ping my mac from the Linux machine using its ip address, I get a response. However, if I ping the mac from the Linux box using its name “kermit.local” - nothing!

This means in order to share files between them via the network, I have to use the ip address rather than name, but I’d rather not. When I had Ubuntu installed instead of openSUSE this all worked fine out of the box, so I’m assuming it’s a problem with the setup of openSUSE rather than the router or the mac.

Any ideas as to what might be at fault?

Thanks,
Lewis

#2

You can always put an entry in /etc/hosts.

When you have only a few systems in your LAN and IP addresses are fixed I find it an old fashioned but stable practise.

#3

Put “wins” in the file nsswitch.conf so the line for hosts looks like this, with wins coming before dns:

hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] wins dns

And please reproduce here the [global] stanza of smb.conf.

#4

Wow, been searching for two days for a solution. Thank you so much. I added WINS and all is well.

#5

Glad to know that