Nodename issue

[Michael Moeller]

Hi,

in the course of a network expansion I had to connect an SS5,
Sol 2.6, to a new subrouter.

Oddly enough, a first trial using 'route add default <NEW IP>'
followed by 'ifconfig le0 auto-dhcp' failed, so I changed the
routers address in /etc/defaultrouter and did a reboot.

This worked but the machine changed its name to 'new-host-3',
which is undesirable. /etc/nodename still contains the right
name, though.

Where do I miss something?


Regards
Michael

[Bruce Esquibel]

Post by Michael Moeller
Hi,
in the course of a network expansion I had to connect an SS5,
Sol 2.6, to a new subrouter.
Oddly enough, a first trial using 'route add default <NEW IP>'
followed by 'ifconfig le0 auto-dhcp' failed, so I changed the
routers address in /etc/defaultrouter and did a reboot.
This worked but the machine changed its name to 'new-host-3',
which is undesirable. /etc/nodename still contains the right
name, though.
Where do I miss something?

My WAG is /etc/hosts

Something like:

192.168.1.123 whatever.domain.com whatever

with the IP address of the machine should fix it using 2.6.

-bruce
***@ripco.com

[mmoel]

Thats what I expected to work too. After reboot
the entry always is reset to 'new-host-3' by the
system.
A comparison with a backup of /etc shows that any
occurence of the workstations given name now has
changed to 'new-host-3', except in file 'nodename'.


Michael

Post by Bruce Esquibel

Post by Michael Moeller
Hi,
in the course of a network expansion I had to connect an SS5,
Sol 2.6, to a new subrouter.
Oddly enough, a first trial using 'route add default <NEW IP>'
followed by 'ifconfig le0 auto-dhcp' failed, so I changed the
routers address in /etc/defaultrouter and did a reboot.
This worked but the machine changed its name to 'new-host-3',
which is undesirable. /etc/nodename still contains the right
name, though.
Where do I miss something?

My WAG is /etc/hosts
192.168.1.123 whatever.domain.com whatever
with the IP address of the machine should fix it using 2.6.
-bruce

[Gary]

I think you're up against the DHCP server renaming the box. I've
never had good luck with DHCP. You might see if you can configure
the DHCP server with a reserved name and IP for your MAC. Other
than that, reserve the MAC/IP in the DHCP server and set a static
IP on the Sun.

Post by mmoel
Thats what I expected to work too. After reboot
the entry always is reset to 'new-host-3' by the
system.
A comparison with a backup of /etc shows that any
occurence of the workstations given name now has
changed to 'new-host-3', except in file 'nodename'.
Michael

Post by Bruce Esquibel

Post by Michael Moeller
Hi,
in the course of a network expansion I had to connect an SS5,
Sol 2.6, to a new subrouter.
Oddly enough, a first trial using 'route add default <NEW IP>'
followed by 'ifconfig le0 auto-dhcp' failed, so I changed the
routers address in /etc/defaultrouter and did a reboot.
This worked but the machine changed its name to 'new-host-3',
which is undesirable. /etc/nodename still contains the right
name, though.
Where do I miss something?

My WAG is /etc/hosts
192.168.1.123 whatever.domain.com whatever
with the IP address of the machine should fix it using 2.6.
-bruce

[Michael Moeller]

Some PCs and Macs are connected to this router without any
problems and until last week it worked with the Sun too.
Giving the router another IP is no reason for silently renaming
the Sun. Maybe thats an uninformed assumption but I'd rather
presume I triggered this behaviour on the client side somehow.
If I can't figure out whats going on I'll have to try the
static IP. Thanks.


Michael

Post by Gary
I think you're up against the DHCP server renaming the box. I've
never had good luck with DHCP. You might see if you can configure
the DHCP server with a reserved name and IP for your MAC. Other
than that, reserve the MAC/IP in the DHCP server and set a static
IP on the Sun.

Post by mmoel
Thats what I expected to work too. After reboot
the entry always is reset to 'new-host-3' by the
system.
A comparison with a backup of /etc shows that any
occurence of the workstations given name now has
changed to 'new-host-3', except in file 'nodename'.
Michael

Post by Bruce Esquibel

Post by Michael Moeller
Hi,
in the course of a network expansion I had to connect an SS5,
Sol 2.6, to a new subrouter.
Oddly enough, a first trial using 'route add default <NEW IP>'
followed by 'ifconfig le0 auto-dhcp' failed, so I changed the
routers address in /etc/defaultrouter and did a reboot.
This worked but the machine changed its name to 'new-host-3',
which is undesirable. /etc/nodename still contains the right
name, though.
Where do I miss something?

My WAG is /etc/hosts
192.168.1.123 whatever.domain.com whatever
with the IP address of the machine should fix it using 2.6.
-bruce

[Casper H.S. Dik]

Post by Michael Moeller
Some PCs and Macs are connected to this router without any
problems and until last week it worked with the Sun too.
Giving the router another IP is no reason for silently renaming
the Sun. Maybe thats an uninformed assumption but I'd rather
presume I triggered this behaviour on the client side somehow.
If I can't figure out whats going on I'll have to try the
static IP. Thanks.

This is likely caused because the new nodename is what is define
in DNS. When a system is configured to use DHCP, it likely gets
all information including the hostname from the DHCP server.

Casper

[Michael Moeller]

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
Some PCs and Macs are connected to this router without any
problems and until last week it worked with the Sun too.
Giving the router another IP is no reason for silently renaming
the Sun. Maybe thats an uninformed assumption but I'd rather
presume I triggered this behaviour on the client side somehow.
If I can't figure out whats going on I'll have to try the
static IP. Thanks.

This is likely caused because the new nodename is what is define
in DNS. When a system is configured to use DHCP, it likely gets
all information including the hostname from the DHCP server.
Casper

Perhaps it's important to say the server is a Cisco business router.
Afaik it doesn't care about the clients names and I changed them at
times without difficulty. Since it worked before the fault is likely
to be client sided. None of the other machines names were altered by
DHCP.

To come a little closer to a solution let me put it another way:
Is it under my control at all (regrading a client on a Sun Sparc,
Sol 2.6) whether the server overrides the clients hostname or not?
And if so, whats the right course of action in the respective case?
I didn't find something useful in the documentation, so far.


Michael

[Casper H.S. Dik]

Post by Michael Moeller
Perhaps it's important to say the server is a Cisco business router.
Afaik it doesn't care about the clients names and I changed them at
times without difficulty. Since it worked before the fault is likely
to be client sided. None of the other machines names were altered by
DHCP.

Is it the name returned by DNS?

I believe you can remove what the DHCP client asks for by
editing /etc/default/dhcp and drop the hostname (param 12)


But Solaris 2.6 is, of course, a very old release (end of 1997?)
and a lot of things have changed; I also do not have a Solaris 2.6
system to check this on.

Casper

[Gary]

Didn't think of that! Good point. For what it's worth I've encountered the
same issue on newer versions of Solaris as well. I'll see if I can find time
to test the change to /etc/default/dhcp on one of my lab boxes.

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
Perhaps it's important to say the server is a Cisco business router.
Afaik it doesn't care about the clients names and I changed them at
times without difficulty. Since it worked before the fault is likely
to be client sided. None of the other machines names were altered by
DHCP.

Is it the name returned by DNS?
I believe you can remove what the DHCP client asks for by
editing /etc/default/dhcp and drop the hostname (param 12)
But Solaris 2.6 is, of course, a very old release (end of 1997?)
and a lot of things have changed; I also do not have a Solaris 2.6
system to check this on.
Casper

[Michael Moeller]

Post by Gary
Didn't think of that! Good point. For what it's worth I've encountered the
same issue on newer versions of Solaris as well. I'll see if I can find time
to test the change to /etc/default/dhcp on one of my lab boxes.

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
Perhaps it's important to say the server is a Cisco business router.
Afaik it doesn't care about the clients names and I changed them at
times without difficulty. Since it worked before the fault is likely
to be client sided. None of the other machines names were altered by
DHCP.

Is it the name returned by DNS?
I believe you can remove what the DHCP client asks for by
editing /etc/default/dhcp and drop the hostname (param 12)
But Solaris 2.6 is, of course, a very old release (end of 1997?)
and a lot of things have changed; I also do not have a Solaris 2.6
system to check this on.
Casper

/etc/default/dhcp is called /etc/dhcp/dhcptags on Solais 2.6.
Param 12 deals with the hostname, though. There are some remarks
which strongly discourage messing around with the settings.

Why it worked before I assigned a new address to the router still
is the big question.

Could it be DHCP behaves different on a subnet router compared to
one running PPPoE at the WAN side? Newer machines can handle this
while the Sun can't?


Michael

[Casper H.S. Dik]

Post by Michael Moeller
/etc/default/dhcp is called /etc/dhcp/dhcptags on Solais 2.6.
Param 12 deals with the hostname, though. There are some remarks
which strongly discourage messing around with the settings.

If you don't want to receive a hostname, you should not ask
for it.

Post by Michael Moeller
Why it worked before I assigned a new address to the router still
is the big question.

I'm not sure exactly what you did before?

Post by Michael Moeller
Could it be DHCP behaves different on a subnet router compared to
one running PPPoE at the WAN side? Newer machines can handle this
while the Sun can't?

Please dump the DHCP packet and see what it contains; if it
contains a hostname, Sun will use it because is wants to
use.

You are complaining that an 18 year old OS isn't as capable
as a more modern OS? Really?

Casper

[Michael Moeller]

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
/etc/default/dhcp is called /etc/dhcp/dhcptags on Solais 2.6.
Param 12 deals with the hostname, though. There are some remarks
which strongly discourage messing around with the settings.

If you don't want to receive a hostname, you should not ask
for it.

Understood. Makes sense.

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
Why it worked before I assigned a new address to the router still
is the big question.

I'm not sure exactly what you did before?

Thats easy, because I wrote it down back then.
I set up Solaris 2.6, put the empty files hostname.le0 and dhcp.le0
in /etc, default router IP goes to /etc/defaultrouter and the ISPs
addresses in /etc/resolv.conf. After reboot I've got DHCP running with
the real hostname like any of the PCs and Macs with a recent OS.

By default at setup Sol 2.6 asks for a hostname and a static IP.
These were used by the router as entries for its DHCP table. After
changing the routers IP, it's not working any more.

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
Could it be DHCP behaves different on a subnet router compared to
one running PPPoE at the WAN side? Newer machines can handle this
while the Sun can't?

Please dump the DHCP packet and see what it contains; if it
contains a hostname, Sun will use it because is wants to
use.

Ok, I'll try this with another Sparc.
Meanwhile I gave it a static IP, so work continues. I'd like
to understand what's going on, though.

Post by Casper H.S. Dik
You are complaining that an 18 year old OS isn't as capable
as a more modern OS? Really?

Yes, because it worked before I changed the routers IP there
must be a way to accomplish this.


Michael

[Gary]

Is it possible that this is a different DHCP server you're dealing with now?

Post by Michael Moeller

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
/etc/default/dhcp is called /etc/dhcp/dhcptags on Solais 2.6.
Param 12 deals with the hostname, though. There are some remarks
which strongly discourage messing around with the settings.

If you don't want to receive a hostname, you should not ask
for it.

Understood. Makes sense.

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
Why it worked before I assigned a new address to the router still
is the big question.

I'm not sure exactly what you did before?

Thats easy, because I wrote it down back then.
I set up Solaris 2.6, put the empty files hostname.le0 and dhcp.le0
in /etc, default router IP goes to /etc/defaultrouter and the ISPs
addresses in /etc/resolv.conf. After reboot I've got DHCP running with
the real hostname like any of the PCs and Macs with a recent OS.
By default at setup Sol 2.6 asks for a hostname and a static IP.
These were used by the router as entries for its DHCP table. After
changing the routers IP, it's not working any more.

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
Could it be DHCP behaves different on a subnet router compared to
one running PPPoE at the WAN side? Newer machines can handle this
while the Sun can't?

Please dump the DHCP packet and see what it contains; if it
contains a hostname, Sun will use it because is wants to
use.

Ok, I'll try this with another Sparc.
Meanwhile I gave it a static IP, so work continues. I'd like
to understand what's going on, though.

Post by Casper H.S. Dik
You are complaining that an 18 year old OS isn't as capable
as a more modern OS? Really?

Yes, because it worked before I changed the routers IP there
must be a way to accomplish this.
Michael

[Michael Moeller]

Post by Gary
Is it possible that this is a different DHCP server you're dealing with now?

No, same router with different IP. The DHCP address range has changed
too. Maybe this is important.
Connecting with a newly set up OS and calling for DHCP seems to be
different from re-conncting to the same router, since nothing on the
Sparc has changed.


Michael

[Michael Moeller]

Post by Michael Moeller
I set up Solaris 2.6, put the empty files hostname.le0 and dhcp.le0
in /etc, default router IP goes to /etc/defaultrouter and the ISPs
addresses in /etc/resolv.conf. After reboot I've got DHCP running with
the real hostname like any of the PCs and Macs with a recent OS.
Michael

I forgot: in /etc/inet/hosts the given static IP must be commented out
in case of DHCP.


Michael

[Casper H.S. Dik]

Post by Michael Moeller
By default at setup Sol 2.6 asks for a hostname and a static IP.
These were used by the router as entries for its DHCP table. After
changing the routers IP, it's not working any more.

Was the network changed or only the last bits of the address?

It can't give addresses not in the connected networks.

Post by Michael Moeller
Yes, because it worked before I changed the routers IP there
must be a way to accomplish this.

What exactly was the change?

Casper

[Michael Moeller]

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
By default at setup Sol 2.6 asks for a hostname and a static IP.
These were used by the router as entries for its DHCP table. After
changing the routers IP, it's not working any more.

Was the network changed or only the last bits of the address?
It can't give addresses not in the connected networks.

Post by Michael Moeller
Yes, because it worked before I changed the routers IP there
must be a way to accomplish this.

What exactly was the change?

Because of a change from ADSL2+ to VDSL the first router had to
be replaced (it also drives the phone installation now). So the
formerly first router (192.168.1.1) changed to be the second
(now 192.168.3.1). The new one calls itself 192.168.2.1 by default,
so I didn't change it.


Michael

[Casper H.S. Dik]

Post by Michael Moeller
Because of a change from ADSL2+ to VDSL the first router had to
be replaced (it also drives the phone installation now). So the
formerly first router (192.168.1.1) changed to be the second
(now 192.168.3.1). The new one calls itself 192.168.2.1 by default,
so I didn't change it.

So the SPARC system needs to change its IP address too. (It will need
to ask for an address in 192.168.2.0)

Casper

[Michael Moeller]

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
Because of a change from ADSL2+ to VDSL the first router had to
be replaced (it also drives the phone installation now). So the
formerly first router (192.168.1.1) changed to be the second
(now 192.168.3.1). The new one calls itself 192.168.2.1 by default,
so I didn't change it.

So the SPARC system needs to change its IP address too. (It will need
to ask for an address in 192.168.2.0)
Casper

You are right. But now I have to go off-topic.
Normally the second router isn't needed at all, as long as you grant
third party access to any TR-069 capable device on your net, A
sub-router with no or disabled TR-069 support and his own IP is
recommended in case you don't want this. Disabling TR-069 on the router
given by the ISP is a violation of contract. At least where I live.


Michael

[Gary]

I've never had good luck using DHCP with Suns. I think what happens
is after the RARP from the DHCP server the sun does an nslookup on
its IP and takes that as its name. The best I've ever been able to come up
with is reserving the MAC/IP in the DHCP server and doing static on the
Sun. That means you'll also need to setup the DNS server info on the Sun
as well, as that is normally passed from the DHCP server. (As is the default
route).

The servers I've managed were always placed in a reserved range on the
DHCP server. That was since they were offering various services, clients
needed a stable name/IP to access them. We also always had DNS A
records set accordingly.

Post by Michael Moeller

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Michael Moeller
Some PCs and Macs are connected to this router without any
problems and until last week it worked with the Sun too.
Giving the router another IP is no reason for silently renaming
the Sun. Maybe thats an uninformed assumption but I'd rather
presume I triggered this behaviour on the client side somehow.
If I can't figure out whats going on I'll have to try the
static IP. Thanks.

This is likely caused because the new nodename is what is define
in DNS. When a system is configured to use DHCP, it likely gets
all information including the hostname from the DHCP server.
Casper

Perhaps it's important to say the server is a Cisco business router.
Afaik it doesn't care about the clients names and I changed them at
times without difficulty. Since it worked before the fault is likely
to be client sided. None of the other machines names were altered by
DHCP.
Is it under my control at all (regrading a client on a Sun Sparc,
Sol 2.6) whether the server overrides the clients hostname or not?
And if so, whats the right course of action in the respective case?
I didn't find something useful in the documentation, so far.
Michael