Networking Question

jscro · jscro #1 (**permalink**)

06-24-2009, 10:40 AM

Just bought my first Mac in about 15 years and I have a networking question.

I've installed the Microsoft Remote Desktop client and can connect to PC's on my network via IP. I cannot connect by machine name. I also notice I can't ping by machine name in the network utility or the terminal. What's strange is, in the Sidebar in the Finder all my pc's show up by name, and I can browse their shares with no problem.

So what do I need to do to be able to ping and connect to PC's via machine name instead of IP?

Nethfel · Nethfel #2 (**permalink**)

06-24-2009, 11:16 AM

Ping and MS RDC for Mac does not by default recognize netbios names on OSX. The sidebar is using Samba to interact which does support netbios naming.

You can try a cheat tho, and do:

computername.local

and see if it works. I use it frequently and have no problems on the windows network at work.

so, if a computer on your network was named homepc - you would ping it with the command:

ping homepc.local

If that doesn't work for you, you can add entries in your hosts file for each machine, or you can setup a DNS server...

jscro · jscro #3 (**permalink**)

06-24-2009, 11:22 AM

That works great, I should have been able to figure that out.

Thanks Nethfel.

Nethfel #2 (permalink)
Member Since: Feb 25, 2009 Posts: 2,084 Mac Specs: 2012 Non-retina MBP, 2.6GHz i7, 8GB RAM, Antiglare Screen	06-24-2009, 11:16 AM Ping and MS RDC for Mac does not by default recognize netbios names on OSX. The sidebar is using Samba to interact which does support netbios naming. You can try a cheat tho, and do: computername.local and see if it works. I use it frequently and have no problems on the windows network at work. so, if a computer on your network was named homepc - you would ping it with the command: ping homepc.local If that doesn't work for you, you can add entries in your hosts file for each machine, or you can setup a DNS server... My Macs: 2012 Non-Retina 15" MBP; Mac mini G4, 1.25 GHz, 512m ram (server); Late 2011 11" MBA, 1.8GHz i7, 4Gig Ram, 256Gig SSD, HD3000; Powerbook 12" G4 1.33GHz running Debian as a server; Apple TV (1080p version)
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jscro #1 (permalink)
Member Since: Jun 24, 2009 Posts: 2	06-24-2009, 10:40 AM Just bought my first Mac in about 15 years and I have a networking question. I've installed the Microsoft Remote Desktop client and can connect to PC's on my network via IP. I cannot connect by machine name. I also notice I can't ping by machine name in the network utility or the terminal. What's strange is, in the Sidebar in the Finder all my pc's show up by name, and I can browse their shares with no problem. So what do I need to do to be able to ping and connect to PC's via machine name instead of IP?
	QUOTE Thanks

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