[Dnsmasq-discuss] Is there a way to return an alias in preference to real host name?

[Chris Green]

On Sun, Aug 02, 2020 at 07:54:00PM +0200, john doe wrote:
> On 8/2/2020 2:39 PM, Chris Green wrote:
> > I have a couple of systems on my home LAN which have long, not very
> > useful, names, e.g.:-
> > 
> >      DESKTOP-978VD5M - An MS Windows machine
> >      MC342-AE529C - An OKI printer
> > 
> > I have added cname entries as follows in my dnsmasq.conf :-
> > 
> >      cname=ben,DESKTOP-978VD5M
> >      cname=oki,MC342-AE529C
> > 
> > So I can refer to them as 'ben' and 'oki'.
> > 
> > However it would be even better if the names 'ben' and 'oki' were
> > returned when I use 'host', 'arp-scan' or similar commands.  Is there
> > a way of getting dnsmasq to do this (preferably without losing the
> > ability to use the long, unmemorable, names as well)?
> > 
> 
> The Host utility should say that 'oki' is an alias for 'MC342-AE529C'
> then show Ip(s) for the record.
> 
Yes it does:-

    chris$ host oki
    oki is an alias for MC342-AE529C.
    MC342-AE529C has address 192.168.1.50

... but 'the other way round' it doesn't tell me about OKI:-

    chris$ host 192.168.1.50
    50.1.168.192.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer MC342-AE529C.zbmc.eu.


I really want anything that looks up a name from an numeric IP to
return the alias rather than the long name.  I.e. the alias should be
the 'preferred' name as it were.

For example I want "nmap -sP" to return the 'better' names which it
doesn't at present:-

    chris$ nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24
    ...
    ...
    ...
    Nmap scan report for MC342-AE529C.zbmc.eu (192.168.1.50)
    Host is up (0.00024s latency).
    ...
    ...
    ...

-- 
Chris Green