Dazed_75 wrote:
> I think I have found the answer.  It looks to me like a router which has
> dnsmasq functionality is exactly what I am looking for.  It would have
> been nice to find a no cost solution, but I think this is the right
> answer.  Looks like it meets all the criteria and beyond the initial
> setup seems to be mostly maintenance free.
> 
> For those that have a single machine sharing its network connection with
> the rest of the LAN, they can do this totally with dnsmasq software.
> 
L,
I'm glad you've found something that meets your requirements. Three comments:

1) The first criteria was that no 'computers' are always turned on. I guess
you're not including a router as a computer. Your DHCP/DNS server would
*have* to be on all the time. ;)

2) A solution that's been working for me is IPCop (http://ipcop.org) on a
formerly retired emachines 333mh box. Pretty much a firewall on steroids,
IPCop provides a slew of neat features including DHCP and DNS (caching and
local hosts) services. I use every feature available (except web proxy) to
one extent or another. It's very easy to configure, as everything after
initial NIC configuration (part of installation) is web based. However,
TTBOMK IPCop does not have a way to automatically update DNS hosts from
dynamic DHCP leases. It's very simple though to assign static IP addresses
to servers in DHCP and add them to the DNS hosts file. At least all
maintenance is consolidated this way, and is easy to do (gui web, from any
machine that's running on the LAN).

3) While not necessarily a concern in the environment(s) you're addressing,
updating DNS with dynamic DHCP leases can be a security risk in some
(business) environments. I'm guessing this is why you don't see much of it
going on.

Just my .02

P.S. Samba might be more what you're looking for, but that only covers the
DNS (name resolution) part. You'd still need a DHCP server available to hand
out local IP addresses.

--
Eric 'shubes'
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