Graphic Systems - 	Glunz and Jensen
 

Computer names and ping

The client application will connect to the PC, where the server application is running using either the name or the ip-address of the machine.

Typically local networks work with dynamic ip-adress allocation, meaning that the computer is allocated an ip-adress when it logs onto the network and it keeps this adress until it is turned off. When it is turned on and relogs onto the network again , it will be allocated a different ip-adress.

This means that you should normally always use the machines logical name, or have a fixed ip-adressdedicated to it. The computers logical name can be determined (at least on an NT) by right clicking the Network Neigborhood icon and selecting Properties. The display below shows a machine with the Computer Name STE-NT4.

If you are uncertain about server address availability, you should use the standard windows application PING.

Start a DOS command prompt windows and enter the command ping followed by the computer name you want to check. In the following exampleyou can see that the machine ste-nt4 is available on a basic TCP/IP level and that it has the ip-adress 25.26.28.131 at least for the time being.