hostname issues

[David Forrest]

On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Steve wrote:

> Hi,
> I just joined this list to see if I can get some help with an annoying problem.
>
> I'm running a Fedora 9 system on an otherwise M$ network. The DHCP server runs on some kind of M$ 2003 server machine. This DHCP server is supposed to dole out both IP addresses and host names. My problem is that sometimes I get a host name and sometimes I don't but I always get an IP address. When I get a host name and when I don't seems fairly random but it is almost every other that I boot I get the other name.
>
> My DHCP client is started at boot time and normally looks like this:
> /sbin/dhclient -q -lf /var/lib/dhclient/dhclient-eth0.leases -pf /var/run/dhclient-eth0.pid eth0
>
> I replaced the -q flag with a -v flag but I still don't see any output in any logs. I've also tried adding '> /var/log/dhclient.log 2>&1' to the line but I just get an empty file.
>
> After getting no help on the Fedora list, I downloaded and installed the source dhclient-4.0.0-22.fc9.x86_64 rpm which got installed in /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/dhcp-4.0.0. There I did a configure followed by a make. configure worked fine but make failed:
>
> # make
> ...
> make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/dhcp-4.0.0/common'
> gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I../includes  -I.. -DLOCALSTATEDIR='"/var"'   -g -O2  -Wall -Werror -fno-strict-aliasing -MT socket.o -MD -MP -MF .deps/socket.Tpo -c -o socket.o socket.c
> socket.c: In function ‘send_packet6’:
> socket.c:443: error: invalid application of ‘sizeof’ to incomplete type ‘struct in6_pktinfo’
> socket.c:480: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type
> socket.c:482: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type
> socket.c:483: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type
> socket.c: In function ‘receive_packet6’:
> socket.c:542: error: invalid application of ‘sizeof’ to incomplete type ‘struct in6_pktinfo’
> socket.c:594: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type
> make[2]: *** [socket.o] Error 1
> make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/dhcp-4.0.0/common'
> make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
> make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/dhcp-4.0.0/common'
> make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
>
> So, here are my questions:
> 1 ) Anyone know why I would be getting the host name from the DHCP server about every other time? (Other than the M$ DHCP server is hosed - which leads me to my 2nd question)
> 2) Why am I seeing no output logging when using the -v flag of dhclient?
> 3) Why is the make failing?
>
> Thanks,
> Steve

You can request a specific host name in the config file (which I notice is 
not being called on your startup command) by creating a config file as 
/etc/dhclient-eth0.conf containing this line: 
send host-name "whatever";

Then it should invoke as:

/sbin/dhclient -q -cf /etc/dhclient-eth0.conf -lf /var/lib/dhclient/dhclient-eth0.leases -pf /var/run/dhclient-eth0.pid eth0

see man dhclient.conf


-- 
David Forrest 
St. Louis, Missouri