Turning off DNS

The DNS server in the HDA can be stopped by doing this:

First turn on Advanced Settings, under Setup --> Settings Then go to the Settings --> Servers Once there, find the DNS Server and unselect both "Watchdog. DNS Server is being monitored 24x7" and "Start at Boot time" Then stop it. It will be stopped forever.

How to still use nice URLs like http://hda

To achieve this, hosts files have to be edited. The hosts file is a local text file which defines fixed relation between URLs and IP addresses on the LAN. Eaxact location is depending on Operation System, you can easily find the location on many sources on the internet. In principle, each line on the hosts file relates one or more host names to one IP address. All we have to do is let the nice short names point to the HDA.

There are two alternatives to do this:

1. Edit the hosts file on each indidiual client

Here is an example for a Windows 7 client hosts file. For this OS the file is located at c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. Note that 192.168.0.3 is the IP address of the HDA.

# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
#	127.0.0.1       localhost
#	::1             localhost

192.168.0.3 hda
192.168.0.3 squeeze.home.com squeeze
192.168.0.3 calendar.home.com calendar
192.168.0.3 jinzora.home.com jinzora
192.168.0.3 aes.home.com aes
192.168.0.3 loganalyzer.home.com loganalyzer
192.168.0.3 mythtv.home.com mythtv
192.168.0.15 router

2. Edit the hosts file on the machine providing DNS services, e.g a router. For example, this is the hosts file from a Linux router located at /etc/hosts. In this example, both the shortname and shortname.home.com point to the HDA Note that 192.168.0.3 is the IP address of the HDA and 192.168.0.15 is the address of the router:

192.168.0.3 hda
192.168.0.3 squeeze.home.com squeeze
192.168.0.3 calendar.home.com calendar
192.168.0.3 jinzora.home.com jinzora
192.168.0.3 aes.home.com aes
192.168.0.3 loganalyzer.home.com loganalyzer
192.168.0.3 mythtv.home.com mythtv
192.168.0.15 router