RE: Implementing my Local Webserver - a frustrating, yet instructional story.

Gough Lui — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 00:07:01 GMT

If you use a decent router, and the DNS is supplied by the router, you can set a static binding on the DNS server on the router to point a name to a fixed IP (e.g. "databox.lan -> 192.168.0.99"). Some routers are nice and will use the advertised computer name in the DHCP options and register a local entry for the computer name and IP binding into the local DNS server - this is not always the case though.

The reason that you might be able to use the machine name on a computer (e.g. running Windows) to resolve to the server IP is that there are several disjoint IP address resolution systems which most operating systems try - this includes:

DNS (normally used first, should work globally)
NBNS (NetBIOS name service - this is used for detecting network shares locally)
mDNS (also known as Bonjour, used in local networks to detect devices with services)

Chances are, if the server in question has Windows File Sharing style shares (SMB shares), then its name is resolvable via NBNS. But most regular devices don't use NBNS or mDNS, especially embedded devices, so they will not be able to find the server as you don't have a DNS binding for it.

Static IPs make thing easier ... as it won't rely on the DNS being operational to make the connection. Although it isn't as flexible, I still tend to use it in my own projects, although I do also set up static DNS bindings knowing that my particular router supports doing so.

- Gough

RE: Implementing my Local Webserver - a frustrating, yet instructional story.

ntewinkel — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 22:03:22 GMT

Hooray!

Glad you got it all figured out.

That upper/lowercase thing has bit me more than once too.

I guess if I were more disciplined in only ever using lowercase names things would go a lot more smoothly.

That's a really good idea using a local NAS as a webserver!

I never put that 2+2 together but it makes perfect sense that they would be computers.

I have a Western Digital "MyCloud" that I'm only using for backups right now, but supposedly it can do all kinds of other fun things, including being a media server. Maybe webserver is on that list too.

I should look into that some day, you know - after the other 287 projects on my to-do list are completed [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-74b9bf16-02d6-47e6-b7e2-1afd5e54bf14/contentimage_5F00_3.png:16:16]

I'm glad my sample was able to help you out!

I still need to try out your updates that allow multiple lines in the graphs [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-74b9bf16-02d6-47e6-b7e2-1afd5e54bf14/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

Cheers,

-Nico