Need Help with setting up xserve

[swap1712]

Hi,
I am completely new to mac and networking stuff...for advanced users, it may be a stupid question but I'm expecting some basic guidance:
Here's a deal: I'm supposed to set up file services for some department in some college. I have a static ip associated with my server and I have named my server as "xyz-new". Suppose my domain is domainname.edu.
I want that my users should be able to access the server using website like names such as xyz-new.domainname.edu.
e.g. I want users to use ssh username@xyz-new.domainname.edu
instead of ssh username@<ip address> or ssh username@xyz-new.local
How do I do that?
I'll appreciate any kind of help inthis regard

 

[belvdr]

You need to have xyz-new added to your internal DNS servers' domainname.edu stub file. Reload DNS and you're golden.

 

[andrewag]

Depending on how the network your clients are connected to you will need to add a DNS entry to the DNS server that the clients point to (assuming this is a private network).

 

[belvdr]

Depending on how the network your clients are connected to you will need to add a DNS entry to the DNS server that the clients point to (assuming this is a private network).

That's just what I stated hours ago. At any rate, even if it is a public network, it will still need to be added to the DNS servers authoritative for the domainname.edu zone.

 

[swap1712]

Thanks, one more query

I suppose we can change the hostname with super user privileges easily. I'm trying to rename my server to "xyz-new" which initially was "xyz". I can do i while the server is turned on. But when I restart it the next day, the hostname is again changed to "xyz". I read "changeip" command is helpful in this regard, but I can hardly conceive anything from its man pages
I'd again appreciate if someone throws light on it.

 

[belvdr]

Think you change the name under Network Prefs.

 

[swap1712]

thanks, one more query

can I have some more details on that?

 

[belvdr]

According to here:

http://ma.tt/2004/07/os-x-hostname/

System Preferences › Sharing › Computer Name

Google is good for your toolkit.

 

[swap1712]

Thanks... but no luck for my issue

Hi again,
You've been genorously helpful with my queries. But I'm afraid that the above solution was hardly helpful and I'd tried it previously. The problem actually is little bit complicated than what it seems to be.
My system preferences>sharing... show the name of the computer which I actually want, but whenever I get the hostname from terminal it shows the same old name. I believe the computer name that's shown in my system preferences is my local machine name, but the DHCP identifies my machine with my static ip which is registered with him with the old name of my computer (xyz) and from there I'm getting the old hostname to appear on my terminal. I don't know whether it really makes sense, but I'm pissed of with this problem.

 

[belvdr]

Hi again,
You've been genorously helpful with my queries. But I'm afraid that the above solution was hardly helpful and I'd tried it previously. The problem actually is little bit complicated than what it seems to be.
My system preferences>sharing... show the name of the computer which I actually want, but whenever I get the hostname from terminal it shows the same old name. I believe the computer name that's shown in my system preferences is my local machine name, but the DHCP identifies my machine with my static ip which is registered with him with the old name of my computer (xyz) and from there I'm getting the old hostname to appear on my terminal. I don't know whether it really makes sense, but I'm pissed of with this problem.

That's it. Your machine is doing a reverse DNS lookup on your IP, and if it has xyz in the reverse DNS record, it's picking that up.

 

[swap1712]

Thanks... a bit more


But how do I change this mapping ? (I mean the name of my computer so that my server should be identified by that name)
One more thing..i just observed...
When I do
changeip -checkhostname
the system says "The DNS hostname is not available, please repair DNS and re-reun this tool"
I donno wat it is!!

 

[Jupeman]

But how do I change this mapping ? (I mean the name of my computer so that my server should be identified by that name)
One more thing..i just observed...
When I do
changeip -checkhostname
the system says "The DNS hostname is not available, please repair DNS and re-reun this tool"
I donno wat it is!!

I'm going to be no help, but since misery loves company I will say that you are asking good questions. I've wrestled with the same thing and never really fixed it. I always ended up reinstalling the OS. Folks will ultimately recommend a UNIX command to change the name, but once I tried this everything went haywire.

 

[belvdr]

But how do I change this mapping ? (I mean the name of my computer so that my server should be identified by that name)
One more thing..i just observed...
When I do
changeip -checkhostname
the system says "The DNS hostname is not available, please repair DNS and re-reun this tool"
I donno wat it is!!

Check your IP. Then do a:

nslookup <your IP>

and see what is returned.

 

[swap1712]

nslookup result

When I do the following
nslookup xxx.yyy.zz.108

The result is:
Server: ABC.191.200.1
Address: ABC.191.200.1#53
**Server can't find 108.zz.yyy.xxx.in-addr.arpa: NXDOMAIN