[olug] dynamic DNS at home

[thelarsons3 at cox.net]

Hi guys.  Here's my situation...

I have a small home LAN.  Basically it's a Linksys router handling DHCP, my wife's WinPC, my Linux box, and a number of other "tinker" boxes that are not always online.  These other machines usually reside in a closet or the basement and only come out when I am putzing with one.  From time to time I fix one up nice, give it away, and get some other semi-obsolete box to play with.  So it's a revolving collection.

Is there some way I can automagically detect all the computers' names from other computers on the network so I don't have to refer to them by IP when they're online?  The Linksys doesn't do DNS, only DHCP.  None of my machines (even the main two) are consistently up 24/7, as we'll turn them off if we think we're going to be away for an extended period, so I don't think a DNS server will work.  Manually updating /etc/hosts with static addresses on all those machines would be a PITB.  

If there were a way to poll the LAN and query names from active IPs, that would be great.  Does such a thing exist, is there another technique I haven't thought of, or am I stuck?  If the solution requires that I leave one machine up all the time I'll consider it, but a script I could run from anywhere as needed would be ideal.  If there are instructions somewhere just point me, but I don't know where to start looking.

Thanks,
Tim

-- 
Tim & Alethea