# Can't ping computers by name anymore



## supanatral (Dec 29, 2007)

I use to have a freeBSD firewall that acted as my gateway, DHCP, and DNS server and I could ping devices by name in terminal and it would work great. Once I switched that firewall out so that my new one is an appliance, now I can't ping anybody by the computer name.

There is actually a WINS server on my network, well sort of. My internet is tunneled using IPSEC to a remote location, and the WINS server is there. I put in the IP address of the wins server in my network properties for the WLAN, but it still doesn't work. Also, I added the proper domain that the other computers are using and it still doesn't work. Also, on of my DNS servers is at that remote location. What can I do to get this working?


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## Tommo (Jan 4, 2008)

The problem here is not WINS rather that it is DNS related. The reason you could ping by name before was that you had a DNS server which was resolving the IP address from the hostname. 

My guess is now that you don't have one or that the address of your DNS server has changed and your network settings need to be modified to reflect this.


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## kayec (Jan 10, 2008)

Hi, I recently had the same problem, with a new mac mini running Mac OS X 10.4 
And I found this http://forums.macnn.com/92/networking/208976/cant-ping-using-computer-name/

just add the name to teh hosts file

bye


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## supanatral (Jan 10, 2008)

thanks kayec, thats great! Also, thanks for registering to answer my quesion. Welcome!

Tommo: Actually-my DNS server is my local router and the DNS server for the DNS server that handles the naming service for the domain.


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