[mythtv-users] Why only numeric IP addresses work?

[Scott Mazur]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:39:46 -0700, Yan-Fa Li wrote
> So Scott.  Fix it and send in a patch...  Nobody is stopping you.

Working on it.  Near as I can tell, it only requires a tweak in
mythbackend/main.cpp and mythbackend/mainserver.cpp.  If I knew C++ at all, it
would probably be a simple matter to pass the "BackendServerIP" value through
gethostbyname().  But I don't know C++ and it looks like there are a few
details involved in calling gethostbyname().

 > However the "easy" technical fix is to map the Ethernet MAC on your 
> DHCP server to a known IP as has been pointed out.  This is also not 
> "rocket science".  :>  Unless of course you change motherboards and 
> LAN cards so often your MAC changes every boot up.

But that's not a fix.  It's a work around.  For the record, I simply hard
coded the IP in the frontend settings for my fix.  Also for the record, it's
also far more difficult to setup the nameserver to dish out machine names on
dynamic connections in the first place.  But, again, that's not the point
 
> This is actually a divergence between the philosophy of Unix and 
> Windows Network Administrators.  Windows guys prefer to set a DHCP 
> address and use Dynamic DNS updates to their Windows based DNS 
> server and Unix guys tend to nail things down using either DHCP or 
> Static IP addresses.  The latest versions of Bind support Dynamic 
> DNS, so this is no longer an issue, but you have to remember DHCP 
> was originally a Microsoft proposed standard so they initially had

I honestly don't know the history of DHCP but I find the philosophy comparison
obsolete.  Today's Linux is hardly the Unix of days gone by.  Myth is a fine
example of that.
 
> the best support for it.  I agree it would be nice if Myth supported 
> Hostname based look ups, but I can live without it since it's a only 
> minor inconvenience.

Minor yes.  And I could live with it too (I have much bigger concerns with
other parts of Myth).  Just feel the need to point out that:

a) It's not documented (or at least obviously)
b) It's somewhat archaic for a state of the art application
c) Not terribly difficult to do in the first place.  Especially for those in
the thick.

I'll shut up now.  Sorry for any toes I may have fallen over in my stumble :)

Scott

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