get name from an IP WITHOUT using DNS

derkaderka · 23 Sep 2009 at 14:19

How is it possible to get a name returned from a PC on a network without requesting it of DNS ?

I use the ws_ping_pro prog and it can sweep an IP range and return the address and name of the PC it pings without using DNS , how does it do this ?

Anyone know ?

paradigm · 23 Sep 2009 at 14:31

What kind of environment is it in?

Are we talking a corporate LAN? Is it just resolving NetBIOS/NetBEUI names, or perhaps using WINS?

derkaderka · 23 Sep 2009 at 14:42

A little more info

This is in our companies network
For some weird reason unknown to those that handle such things
PC's entries (the PC on a static IP ) are "disappearing" from the static DNS tables
If I use ws_ping_pro I can sweep a range eg 192.168.5.XX and return the IP + name

I am looking to write a small util to sweep the range then check if it can resolve the
name to IP , if it cant then output the PC's data so I can pass it on the monkeys that
look after our network to get them to amend their table.

Its not even my problem / responsibility , but its peeing me off that when I try and vnc
onto a machine it returns address not known some of the time :-(

iaind · 23 Sep 2009 at 14:50

NetBIOS possibly?

derkaderka · 23 Sep 2009 at 14:51

Is there a command to query a PC via ip and then return its name?
If so what command would do that ? ( I cant rely on DNS cos it seems to "miss" stuff )

iaind · 23 Sep 2009 at 15:01

derkaderka said:
Is there a command to query a PC via ip and then return its name?
If so what command would do that ? ( I cant rely on DNS cos it seems to "miss" stuff )

SNMP

paradigm · 23 Sep 2009 at 15:06

nbtstat -A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

(where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address you want to look at)

derkaderka · 23 Sep 2009 at 16:07

Thanks will give that a try next time I discover a "missing" PC

SMN · 23 Sep 2009 at 18:36

Netbios - its a horrible thing.

derkaderka · 24 Sep 2009 at 08:51

paradigm said:
nbtstat -A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

(where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address you want to look at)

YEP , that works great

Just gota work out how to scan the output of that command and then
gather the name info line and then output to file so I can pass it on
to the network monkeys ....... good help these days is hard to find

paradigm · 24 Sep 2009 at 09:06

Perhaps take a look at writing a perl script to output to a file for you;

http://bytes.com/topic/perl/answers/686652-parsing-output-nbtstat

It's not your exact scenario, but it is close.