Access Windows from Mac via Remote Dekstop Connection using hostname

I'm using Snow Leopard with Remote Desktop Connection attempting to access a Windows XP machine on a home network. If I specify the Windows PC's hostname it won't connect. Only by specifying the IP address does it connect. It's the same issue when trying to ping the Windows machine - IP address works, hostname doesn't.

Both machines are on the same subnet connecting with a wireless router.

Is there way to get OSX to resolve the Windows PC by its hostname?

Wavy Crab

Posted 2010-05-13T21:38:02.210

Reputation: 1 455

Answers

I installed Bonjour on the Windows machines and now OS X can see them by hostname (ie hostname.local). See Accessing Windows from Linux/Mac by name using TCP/IP

Wavy Crab

Posted 2010-05-13T21:38:02.210

Reputation: 1 455

Are you using DHCP, or are your IP addresses set manually? If you are setting the IPs manually, then it's possible that the hostnames won't be registered in the router's DNS, so when OS X goes to look up the hostname, it doesn't find it.

One workaround would be to add an entry in the Mac's HOSTS file, if the IPs are static. Then your mac would connect directly to that IP whenever you typed in the hostname.

nhinkle

Posted 2010-05-13T21:38:02.210

Reputation: 35 057

I'm using DHCP. – Wavy Crab – 2010-05-13T22:21:26.137

Can you resolve the Mac's address using the hostname from the XP computer? – nhinkle – 2010-05-14T00:24:48.087

No, Windows can't ping the OSX machine either. – Wavy Crab – 2010-05-29T20:13:53.710

Have you checked the router's configurations? Some routers will purposefully drop ICMP (ping) packets. Also, what is the IP given to each computer? Is it possible that they're somehow not getting IPs in the same subnet? – nhinkle – 2010-05-29T21:02:38.157

Same subnet, Windows PCs can ping each other (by name and IP address). Mac can only ping Windows by IP address. I think it's some kind of DNS issue. Windows must be bypassing DNS (WINS?) which is why they can ping each other. Mac can't resolve Windows PC name so it can only ping my IP address. – Wavy Crab – 2010-05-29T21:08:18.303

Hm. Are they all set to use the DNS server given to them by DHCP? Make sure you haven't accidentally set them to use a specific DNS server. What happens when you do an nslookup for one of the windows machines from the other? – nhinkle – 2010-05-30T18:09:52.000

DHCP is on the all-in-one DSL modem / router / wireless account point. DNS is my ISPs DNS, so basically there's local DNS running. Windows can discover other Windows machines (WINS?). Linux/OSX can't discover Windows. Is there a way to for Linux/OSX to discover Windows (possibly via WINS)? Or do I need to run a local DNS? – Wavy Crab – 2010-06-05T02:37:16.067

Your all-in-one router/modem likely is running a local DNS server. What were the results of an nslookup? The way to do that is open the command line on one of the computers, and type nslookup computername. It will tell you the IP of the computer if the DNS server it's using knows it, and will also tell you the IP of the DNS server. If you could post that information, that would be helpful.

I am unaware of any way to make linux or OS X use WINS or NetBIOS to find the machines. Are you sure there isn't any firewall on either windows machine preventing it from responding to network requests? – nhinkle – 2010-06-05T17:36:39.693

Are you looking it up as "hostname.local"? If so, that could be your problem, because Mac OS X reserves the .local domain for IETF ZeroConf (Apple calls their implementation of this "Bonjour"), whereas Windows uses .local for a different, Microsoft-proprietary name resolution scheme. Try the hostname without the .local, or see if you can use change your default domain on your Windows systems to something other than .local (maybe .home or something).

Spiff

Posted 2010-05-13T21:38:02.210

Reputation: 84 656