[NTLUG:Discuss] RH8 will not answer ping

[Kelledin]

On Monday 26 January 2004 11:07 am, Wayne Patterson wrote:
> This is a bone stock, hot off the cd version of RH8. I can not
> get it to answer it's name when I ping it. I can ping the ip
> address and it works but not with the bios name.
> I do have samba up and sort-of working, that's how I found out
> that it would not answer it's name.
> Any ideas?

If you're trying to ping it by its netBIOS name, the box you're 
pinging from should be equipped to resolve hostnames via 
netBIOS.

Windows is equipped for this automatically.  Linux distributions 
sometimes aren't (altho RedHat might be).  Configuring it to 
resolve via netBIOS is a matter of making sure libnss_wins or 
libnss_winbind is installed, and that /etc/nsswitch.conf is set 
up properly.  And of course, you need to have samba services 
(especially nmbd) running on the host you want to resove.

libnss_{wins,winbind} modules are usually in /lib or /usr/lib.  
As for nsswitch.conf, you need to make sure "wins" or "winbind" 
is listed in the hosts line.  For example, the hosts line in my 
nsswitch.conf file goes thus:

------------------------------------
    hosts:         files wins dns
-------------------------^^^^-------

-- 
Kelledin
"If a server crashes in a server farm and no one pings it, does 
it still cost four figures to fix?"