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Thread ID: 21559 2002-06-28 21:29:00 Att Graham Lees! re "hostfile W2K" Chris Wilson (431) Press F1
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58090 2002-06-28 21:29:00 Hi Graham,

In response to questions asked on this thread ( . co . nz/thread . jsp?forum=1&thread=21411" target="_blank">pressf1 . co . nz) you offered the advice of creating a "hostfile" .

Suddenly i realize just how little i know about some things . Could you offer a little clarification as to what this is, and how we set this up to work

Thanking You
Chris .
Chris Wilson (431)
58091 2002-06-29 02:01:00 Thinking about it, I'd be inclined to leave the TCP/IP stuff alone . Even when Erin's machine could not see the others (in Windows), it could use the gateway . So the network stuff was working . It's the MS security stuff which wasn't .

I'm not a Windows expert . . . I have W95 and W3 . 11 on my network, but they talk to a SAMBA server on a Linux host . And that works with magic . Like magic .

There is a lot of information around (you should be able to find a file called lmhosts . sam --- probably in "%SystemRoot%\System32\Driver\Etc\ -- or there might even be an lmhosts in \Windows\) . lmhost . sam is an example, giving the syntax . "lmhosts Windows" to google . co . nz gives a lot of matches . . . the one at labmice . net ( . labmice . net/networking/lmhosts . htm" target="_blank">www . labmice . net) looks good .

In NT at least, the "hosts" file is for TCP/IP utilities, the "lmhosts" is for LanManager NET utilities name resolution of NetBIOS names when using TCP/IP .

A magazine article I read recently gave instructions for disabling DHCP, but it looks nasty .

I am surprised that it was failing "quietly" (except for your language) . ;-) A security "error" like a failure of negotiation between machines ought to be (at least) logged . Is logging turned off by default? If so, turn it on . Security errors are a major indication that someone is trying to break in . If things are not working, they are a help in finding out what is happening . Have you done a "Find" for any file with "log" in the name?

A *nix host file looks like:

#/etc/hosts
# IP address aliases, fully qualified name
127 . 0 . 0 . 1 localhost
10 . 0 . 100 . 30 bravo bravo . my . net # 386DX40
10 . 0 . 100 . 70 digital ns1 www ftp digital . my . net # 486DX2/66
10 . 0 . 100 . 60 compaq1 ns2 compaq1 . my . net # P133
10 . 0 . 100 . 98 axis1 pserver axis1 . my . net # AXIS printserver
10 . 0 . 100 . 80 cisco1 cisco1 . my . net # Cisco router
10 . 0 . 100 . 85 decb decb . my . net # DEC brouter
10 . 0 . 100 . 65 shiva shiva . my . net # Shiva bridge
. . .



Lmhosts might look like:
192 . 168 . 0 . 3 chris #PRE
192 . 168 . 0 . 4 erin #PRE
. . .

The PRE keyword says it's preloaded at boot time into a cache .

It's "trivial" on a linux system to move from a non-DNS to a DNS (or DHCP) . I think that it might be harder to "turn off" the DHCP in Windows safely . If you're sure that with that security timeout expunged the network keeps working for the MS standard MTBF of 47 . 6 hours, it' probably bettter to leave it alone . Poking any animal with a sharp stick gets a response; networks are best when not changed .
Graham L (2)
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