set hostname on dhcp

I am reposting this here since it might be useful for other. (and that my older post got deleted)

I use my rpi headless so I needed an easy way to track which ip it got when connecting to the network. I uses dhcp but when connecting to a bigger network it becomes hard to find where it is.

to do that I changed the

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/etc/dhcp/dhcpclient.conf


uncommented the send host-name and added a more suitable host-name:

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send host-name "raspberry.pi";


So now I can simply :

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ssh pi@raspberry


to connect to my freshly connected computer. Also since I use lighttp I can simply browse to

http://raspberry/

and my main page shows up!

I have seen this elsewhere on here in relation to getting a hostname to appear on the list of addresses on a router.


You need to edit the instructions as the file is called dhclient.conf.
Although this procedure enables the Pi to show up on a router I cannot ssh or ping it by the hostname.

Hi

I use avahi to detect which IP address my raspberry pi has. It is also called Zeroconf/Bonjour/Rendezvous, initiated by Apple and so far mostly used in Mac applications. Observation post shows all announced services in the local network. Development is discontinued, but still available as download http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/18505/observation-post . On linux machines you can also use

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avahi-browse -arp

to show all available services and resolved IP addresses.

My services definition in /etc/avahi/services/multiple.service looks like this:

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<?xml version="1.0" standalone='no'?>
<!DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM "avahi-service.dtd">
<service-group>
        <name replace-wildcards="yes">%h</name>
        <service>
                <type>_device-info._tcp</type>
                <port>0</port>
                <txt-record>model=RackMac</txt-record>
        </service>
        <service>
                <type>_ssh._tcp</type>
                <port>22</port>
        </service>
</service-group>

Is it just my brain not working or I can't find how to edit my old post ?? Seems like I can edit post I just wrote (like what I am doing right now ) but can't edit older post

And grumpyoldgit, yes I was surprise I could ssh to that host. I am not sure if it's due to me being on mac or because my router uses openwrt ? But it's working just as described throughout the network from http to ssh...

Re: Editing posts

I think the rules are that you can only edit a post if it is the last one in the thread. I.e., once someone else has (possibly) commented upon your post, then you aren't allowed to change it.

Is it just my brain not working or I can't find how to edit my old post ?? Seems like I can edit post I just wrote (like what I am doing right now ) but can't edit older post

And grumpyoldgit, yes I was surprise I could ssh to that host. I am not sure if it's due to me being on mac or because my router uses openwrt ? But it's working just as described throughout the network from http to ssh...

I am at a bit of a loss then. I am trying to SSH and ping from Lubuntu 12.04 and the hostname does not get recognised though it is there now on the router.

Although this procedure enables the Pi to show up on a router I cannot ssh or ping it by the hostname.

Probably because when you ssh hostname the hostname is turned into an IP address by either looking in the hosts file http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_%28file%29 or by querying the DNS server http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System. Most people don't run their own local DNS server and so use the one provided by their ISP.

yes I was surprise I could ssh to that host. I am not sure if it's due to me being on mac or because my router uses openwrt ? But it's working just as described throughout the network from http to ssh...

Possibly because OpenWrt has a dnsmasq http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/uci/dhcp#using.plain.dnsmasq.conf http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/doc.html

yes OpenWrt seems to be the culprit here - I am trying from home on a linux only network with few machines and openwrt router and I can easily ssh pi@raspberry or view my lighttp server with http://raspberry/

Sad that it's not a more generalized behavior for the router as it would be a nice simple hack to simplify the ssh login to a headless pi...

What router are you using grumpyoldgit ? (might be time to switch to openwrt! another really kool project based on linux!!)

I use my rpi headless so I needed an easy way to track which ip it got when connecting to the network. I uses dhcp but when connecting to a bigger network it becomes hard to find where it is.

to do that I changed the

/etc/dhcp/dhcpclient.conf

uncommented the send host-name and added a more suitable host-name:

send host-name "raspberry.pi";

Yes. I can confirm that this method works. You have to do /etc/init.d/networking restart
of course, to get it to "take". Also, the file is, as GoG notes, dhclient.conf (no "cp")

Anyway, going off-topic for a moment, does anyone know how to do the same thing on a Mac? My Mac does not show up in my DHCP table. The net tells me that this is a bug in the Mac side of things - that if the hostname is greater than 15 characters, it won't work - and that the fix is to make sure your hostname is less than 16. And, indeed, my hostname is longer than 15.

But interestingly enough, I noticed that the router display seems to truncate the name to 15 as well. So, maybe both parties are partly responsible for the dilemma.

When I was with BeBroadband, the ISP-provided router did local DNS resolution of local DHCP hostnames. But now I'm with VirginMedia (after moving house) the ISP-provided router doesn't do local DNS resolution
So I've configured DHCP on my VM router to always allocate a fixed IP address to my Pi's MAC address, and then set up an entry in /etc/hosts on each of my machines (or %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows) to map the IP address to raspberrypi.

Perfect...This was just what I was looking for to make my ssh and vnc sessions a lot easier when switching networks!