Host name shown in terminal is someone else

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Host name shown in terminal is someone else

From reading a couple other semi-related topics around here I've determined that the host name shown in a terminal window is assigned by the network and not always the same. That's fine.

My issue is that while I'm at work (on a Windows network) I am showing a host name that is actually someone else's machine name on the network. So I show...

arichards:~ dsmith$

I just want to understand this more than anything. arichards is an actual other users's Windows computer name on the network. My computer name is bishop, so why is the host name showing another user?

I checked my assigned IP and pinged that user's machine and the IPs are different, so it's not like they're crossed. I'm not a network admin, so I'm just trying to determine if this is a problem that can be or needs to be fixed.

Thank you.

Posted on Oct 12, 2005 6:28 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 12, 2005 8:27 PM in response to BishopGrey

I've seen machines on Windows networks that do kinda what you're describing. Or like, your machine gets a specific ip address and you think it's ready to go, but when other computers on that network ping your ip they go to some other machine. Some co-workers and I discovered this while trying to mount shared folders on other machines.

I'm no Microsoft network expert, but I think this may have to do with Windows domain controller being misconfigured or out of date. I don't know how to fix it, but I know that our network at my previous job was all messed up like that, routes between computers were basically wrong half the time, and it took a week or something before our admin straightened it out.

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Answer 2

BishopGrey Author

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Oct 12, 2005 9:23 PM in response to Kaan Erdener

That's good to know Kaan. Maybe I can pass this along to our IT dept for further investigation. The only fear is that they are a Windows only IT dept and always scoff at and fear our Macs in creative. 🙂 So they'll probably try to blame it on Apple or some crap. Thanks for the input. Anyone have any detailed solutions or an explanation of exactly why this happens?

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Answer 3

Oct 23, 2005 9:47 PM in response to BishopGrey

With Active Directory and Windows DNS, DNS is updated when you login to AD.

What's probably happening is that computer, arichard, had the IP you have at one time - and if you check DNS ('nslookup <yourip>' in a terminal) you'll probably get arichard on the reverse lookup. When you get this address, via DHCP, your system does a name lookup, and renames your computer to that name.

To fix it locally on your machine, you should be able to go to System Preferences, Sharing, and type in your computer name in the Computer Name field.

To fix it in DNS, your MAC will need to login to the AD domain (don't ask me how) or your DNS admin will need to change the name in DNS (good luck).

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Answer 4

BishopGrey Author

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Oct 27, 2005 10:40 AM in response to Chris Smith5

Thank you, Chris. Our computer names in Sharing were already set. We set them again to be sure, but that didn't do much. You were right about the cause though. When I mentioned this to our IT dept, they were able to do something to fix the issue on the network side.

It's issues like these that always leave me wondering.. is this an issue with OS X or the Windows network?

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Answer 5

Oct 27, 2005 1:39 PM in response to BishopGrey

It's an issue stemming from you "real PC" not having been "assimilated". Since your system does not actually log into the AD domain, it never updates DNS and those old records stay out there from when the last user that DID login to the AD domain logged in on that IP address.

Clear as mud?

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Answer 6

BishopGrey Author

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Oct 27, 2005 1:53 PM in response to Chris Smith5

Makes perfect sense. Thanks.

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Answer 7

Nov 4, 2005 4:02 PM in response to BishopGrey

Could you please let us know what was done to fix the issue by your IT department? I'd REALLY like to know, as this is also driving me insane.

I'm looking for ways to fix it on my end so that my laptop refers to itself by the name I give it, always, unless I need to have it hand out the externally resolvable DNS name. No luck so far in a complete solution, though. 😟

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Answer 8

BishopGrey Author

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Nov 4, 2005 5:48 PM in response to Nikolai Colton

I just asked our IT guy what he did and this was his exact reply...

"I flushed the dns cache (ipconfig /flushdns) on our domain controller and that did the trick"

I'll assume that other admins out there understand this answer more than I do, but it makes sense to me given my limited knowledge of domain controllers.

I hope that helps!

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Answer 9

Nov 7, 2005 12:10 AM in response to BishopGrey

That does, in fact. That sounds like a VERY short term solution. 😟

I ran across some information on setting up DNS under windows with DHCP and dynamic DNS settings so it works with OS X in the forums, but don't remember what it was.

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Answer 10

BishopGrey Author

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Nov 7, 2005 3:23 PM in response to Nikolai Colton

I understand why it's not an ideal solution, but ever since he did that, everything's been fine with all Macs on our network. Certainly not practical having to do this each time a new Mac is added to the network though. But I'm not sure if that'd be the case.

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