Re[2]: [Xitami] Intranet questions

[Paul Reid]

> how to create a host file?

You surely already have one.

On my XP box it is at C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Win9x is different. Start, Find (or Search), Files, "hosts".

There may be hosts.sam and lmhosts. In rare cases there is no hosts
file, just the lmhosts (which is for Windows Networking). Copy one
of those, edit, save as "hosts".

Open it in NotePad. It has some comments (marked by "#") and then a
list of IP numbers and machines. Here's the default:

 #      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
 #       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host
 127.0.0.1       localhost

The acme.com entries are bogus examples, and because of the "#" are
ignored.

The "127.0.0.1 localhost" entry is how your machine finds
"localhost".

Add some lines like

 127.0.0.2  bedroom
 127.0.0.3  kitchen
 127.0.0.4  attic

Use the IP numbers you or your router assigned to your in-house
machines. Most routers use a 168... range instead of the 127...
range.

Save the file (and be sure NotePad doesn't stick a TXT extension on
it!).

On the same machine, now "http://kitchen" should open the web server
on the machine 127.0.0.3

So that every machine in the house knows the name-IP assignments for
all the other machines, copy your custom HOSTS file to the right
folder on every machine in the house.

If you let your router do DCHP, each machine's IP number may change
at each re-boot. That's no good for a static hosts file. Tell your
router to reserve some fixed IP numbers for those machines that will
have "public" (in-house) names and services, or turn off DCHP on
those machines and hand-enter IP numbers (being sure the router is
told not to use those numbers in DCHP for other machines).

That HOSTS file is how we used to do it. Much better than a printout
tacked to the wall and typing IP numbers by hand. When the ARPAnet
was dozens of machines, it was cool. But in bigger networks, it gets
cumbersome to keep adding new machines to the file and copying the
file to all other machines. ARPAnet choked when there were thousands
of machines on the net and these HOSTS files had to be updated and
distributed nightly.

That's where DNS is better. One machine holds all the data and other
machines ask it to look-up IP numbers for names they don't know. You
could set up your own in-house DNS service, but it is really more
work than a typical home LAN justifies, especially if there are only
a few machines that need to be "known" to others as DNS names.

 -PRR