[Dnsmasq-discuss] Automatic DHCP client naming

[Ferenc Wagner]

Simon Kelley <simon at thekelleys.org.uk> writes:

> Ferenc Wagner wrote:
> 
>> Is there any way in dnsmasq to push a hostname to a DHCP client even if
>> it didn't report (or ask for) one? 
>
> This much is easy:
> dhcp-host=00:11:22:33:44:55,myhost

Yeah, it isn't a problem in itself.

>> I'd like to automatically name my clients based on their MAC
>> addresses, like 00:11:22:33:44:55 should get the hostname
>> 00-11-22-33-44-55.domain.tld.
>
> That's not possible, other then by enumerating all possible MAC
> addresses in the configuration file.

That sure would make for a biggish configuration file...

>> Currently, I can get this effect only if the client sends its
>> hostname in the DHCP request; then dnsmasq adds the correct domain,
>> registers the name in its DNS database and sends back the fully
>> qualified address.  Good.  But I'd like to avoid generating the
>> hostname on the clients before starting DHCP.
>
> It would be possible to add that functionality, probably with something
> like dhcp-ignore-names, say "dhcp-mac-as-name", but only for a fixed
> name format (should there be a prefix?)

Hmm, I'd rather extend the wildcarding already present in dhcp-mac with
something like

dhcp-mac=*:*:*:*:*:*,PREFIX*-*-*-*-*-*SUFFIX

or

dhcp-mac=*,PREFIX*SUFFIX

with the replacement of colons implied.  On the other hand, I've found
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.network.dns.dnsmasq.general/3774/focus=3778
just now...  Well, managing a registry from dhcp-script is almost
acceptable, apart from the first run.  Here is another idea: why not let
dhcp-script write back the hostname to dnsmasq?  That way no separate
registry nor daemon restarts would be needed.
-- 
Cheers,
Feri.