How to Get HOST name to show up in Router

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How to Get HOST name to show up in Router

My router does not show any values for any of my Macintoshes. It just shows blank. I have several MACs. Router just shows IP address and their mac addess.

The value in the MacIntosh sharing preference pane does NOT show up on router (Belkin wireless-G router).

On the other hand-- I have PARALLELS running and that host name DOES show up in the router.

It would be easier to have te host name show up --because i Have several MACs on my network and I don't have their mac addresses memorized.

Thanks for any help

MacBook Pro Intel, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on May 28, 2007 7:26 AM

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Answer 1

May 29, 2007 1:44 PM in response to DickSwee

OSX follows the standard procedure for DHCP options as outlined in RFC1533. The host name is sent in the options part of the DHCPREQUEST packet, id number 12. I think the Belkin is also rfc1533-compliant, so your problem must be with the host name. It's possible that the Belkin doesn't like spaces or dashes, or your hostname is too long. RFC952 specifies letters, digits and hyphens are allowed, but the maximum length of a hostname is 24.

I would go to Sharing Preferences, click on the Edit button right under the Computer name and put in a short name with no spaces or anything other than letters and digits. Or I'd go into Terminal and enter "sudo hostname [newname]". Then I'd go renew the DHCP lease, and see if that did the trick. I think it will.

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Answer 2

May 29, 2007 2:39 PM in response to philsmith_

Yeah this is probably a bug. I have always had to set the machine name manually to get it to show up as a host. Otherwise it shows up as a random number.

I believe this happens for the same reason that default settings are in effect until they are changed. A plist file will not contain the default setting, but only after it is changed from default it is written to the plist file. Meanwhile the default is stored in the application package, and as such is not even accessible by a script. This would be my suspicion with the "computer name", that when the router asks for it the default can't be sent because it is not in a plist somewhere.

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