Local DNS server is required to use names instead of full IP?

Question

My computers have local IP addresses such as 192.168.0.X. And many of the computers have names such as "MyPC" or "YourPC" etc.

It seems on Windows, in most cases, just using "MyPC" instead of the full IP seems to be working. But I also have a Mac and lots of Android devices. Most of the programs on those machines (not all of them, though) do not understand such names, and require full IP. Typing full IP is tyring.

1)Do I have to maintain my own DNS server to make "MyPC" work on all devices? My router does not have DNS server features and it only allows to change the DNS server.

2)Isn't there any shorthand notation to omit "192.168.0." part? All my local IP start with that, and it seems quite stupid to type it every single time. Can't there be something like ".1" instead of "192.168.0.1"?

Answer 1

1. The reason windows machines allow you to simple type in the computer name is because windows supports 'netbios name resolution'. I've been able to get this working on Linux. You could look at getting it working on your other machines by installing additional software. (samba?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBIOS

2. You can add each name to your HOSTS file., but you'll have to make this change on every machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)

3. Hosting a DNS server isn't as hard as you may think. You may already be doing it. My router does this for me automatically. You could browse your router settings looking for static addresses or anything of that nature and see if you can assign a name to a specific ip address.
   
   I use OpenWRT for my router. You could see if your router is supported. http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start

Answer 2

Answers:

1. You can edit your hosts file. Still it a lot of work to keep it updated to many devices. Take a look here.

2. You cant use just "1" cause the information contained in the ip is more than just the location of the machine take a look here This has to do with CIDR wich is the manner how IPs are distributed in the world. A good explanation is provided in this wikipedia article.