Some theory about name resolution

  • Thread starter Thread starter misirion
  • Start date Start date
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misirion

Hello,

I'd like to understand better how the name resolution works.
In my company network, we don't use WINS. If I ping a workstation name
that is placed in my same VLAN, I can obtain its IP address without it
being registered in DNS. But when the workstation isn't in the same
VLAN, it isn't possibile and I'd like to understand better why.
Why does it ping in the first case? It's because of SMB protocol? And
how can I obtain the IP address of a ws. placed in a _known_ VLAN, but
not mine? Is there a technical way to do it?

Can you suggest me some reference to understand better the argument?

Thanks and regards,

misirion
 
The reason you can see other workstations on the same VLAN is becuase you
are on the same subnet and when your machine goes to ping it by name it
resolves the address by doing a broadcast on your subnet looking for this
name. Since this broadcast only occurs on this subnet there is no way for
the local host to find out information beyond this subnet without help.
Either a helper server (WINS or DNS) WINS helps with NETBIOS name resolution
and DNS with IP -or- you have to define a local static table on your
workstation. If you want to define local name to ip addresses for your
netbios machine place mappings in the LMHOST table or name to ip in the host
table. Both are located at %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc

--
Paul Bergson MCT, MCSE, MCSA, Security+, CNE, CNA, CCA
http://www.pbbergs.com

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