On Tue, Nov 5, 2019 at 5:51 AM Rich Shepard <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Nov 2019, John Jason Jordan wrote: > > > In all my years of printing from computers to printers over a network, > > I've never run into a printer whose IP address could not be changed > > from the printer's control panel. > > John, > > My experiences over the past couple of decades is the opposite: I've never > had a printer with a built-in IP address. Of course, the Okidata dot-matrix > printer wasn't network-enabled, but the laser and inkjet printers all > were/are and the IP address is set in /etc/hosts, not on the printer. Then > again, my printers have been HP (and a Brother which I gave to a new home). > > Rich > I'm getting really confused here. The /etc/hosts file is not for setting IP addresses on devices. It is to translate domain names to IP addresses (DNS function), usually for local testing. For example, if I want to test a web page at foo.bar, I would make an entry in my /etc/hosts file like: 172.16.2.10 foo.bar Then I could go to my browser and point it to foo.bar and it would take me to the host at 172.16.2.10 and display the web page there. Or I could connect to the host with ssh foo.bar instead of remembering to ssh 172.16.2.10. You could also use it to give names to your devices: 172.16.2.30 Printer1 172.16.2.31 Printer2 172.16.2.32 Camera5 172.16.2.33 Refrigerator This means that these devices must have static addresses for this to work. If they had dynamic addresses and their lease changed to give them a new address, then your /etc/hosts file is toast. Static addresses are set one of two ways. The device itself (printer, computer, refrigerator, whatever) is programmed in its own configuration for its IP address. Or, the address is assigned by the DHCP server in its config file by MAC address, so any time that MAC address comes on line requesting an address, it is always given the same one. Again, it has been a while since I set up networking. If any of this has changed, some one please educate me. Michael _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
