DNS Question

[nictech]

Hi Guys,

I currently have a home network witha mixture of Red HAt9 and Windows XP and 2000 machines.

I am in the process of making a full linux network.

The question I have is I know I should use a DNS server to supply my boxes with IP addresses but can I leave the servers with Static IP's.?

You wisdom most appreciated.

Cheers

[jasonlambert]

It is DHCP that provides IP addresses to computers not DNS.

DNS resolves a human readable name to an IP address and vica-versa.

In answer to your question, yes, the servers can have static IP addresses while your clients have dynamic IP addresses.

Jason

[Dolda2000]

Indeed it is as Jason says. DHCP - the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol - hands out IP addresses to computers that request than, while DNS - the Domain Name System - is commonly used for giving IP addresses names (which has more advantages than just being able to remember them - you can have the IP address changing while the name remains). DNS is really capable of much more than that though - it's basically a distributed database, but resolving hostnames is by far its most common usage.

Yes, I do think that you should configure your clients with DHCP. It's much easier to just plug a new client in that way. And yes, if you do that, you can leave the servers with static addresses. DHCP only gives IP addresses to those systems that request it, it doesn't force IP addresses on anyone.

You can also integrate the DHCP and DNS systems using DDNS, so that all systems get both an IP address and a domain name. That's how I've set things up at home.