Printronix P5000LJ user manual Creating Aliases, TCP/IP NIC Configuration

Chapter 7 TCP/IP NIC Configuration

Creating Aliases

All TCP/IP systems are designed to make multiple operations easy by using an alias, which is a logical name to IP/MAC address association. This step is important in the Unix world if DNS (Domain Name Services) is being used; it can also simplify the other environments.

Locate the hosts file. (If you are using Windows 95/98 and have never had a hosts file, you can create one by using Notepad or any other text editor and saving it to the Windows directory.) Edit the file to add your new P5000LJ Printer, and save the file. Rebooting is not necessary.

Location of hosts file:

Windows 95/98	windows
NT	windows/system32/drivers/etc
Unix	/etc
HP e3000	host.net.sys

Example of entries in a hosts file:

10.200.30.123 printer1 10.200.30.130 accounting 192.168.2.33 next_state 10.200.30.18 MIS

Note Make the names easy to remember but descriptively useful.

In most Unix systems using DNS, a hosts table is constructed as shown above. The file nsswitch.conf or its equivalent is then edited to associate a MAC (hardware address) to an IP address in the hosts file. In doing this, any individual client workstation needs only a single address entry—specifically, the DNS host address—as a ping to printer1 is actually resolved by the DNS machine and returned to the client workstation. This means an administrator need maintain only one hosts file for all to use, making updating central.

For peer to peer and small networks, using a local hosts table on each workstation can function in place of DNS.

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