I have a small network with populated with 4 or 5 machines all on the same router. At this time I'm developing software so the router is connected to the internet but when deployed this will be a standalone LAN. When deployed only one machine will have windowing (gnome), the others will be headless, boot to command line, and start an application automatically but right now all are booting to GNOME.
There is also a GPS enabled NTP Server appliance (not a computer) on the LAN.
All the IP Addresses are fixed.
How should this be set up? I'm asking because I think I see some problems. For instance the resolv.conf files are identical and I'm told that Gnome runs some kind of a nameserver.
nameserver 127.0.0.1
All the host files are:
127.0.0.1 localhost loopback
# hpnotebook is the local machine
192.168.1.200 hpnotebook master
192.168.1.201 orange
192.168.1.202 blue vis
192.168.1.203 maroon mir
192.168.1.204 green tir
192.168.1.210 nts ntpserver
When deployed the computer "orange" will act as the master and run Gnome with a monitor etc. and "hpnotebook" will not be present as it's only for development and debugging.
Samba is running.
I am doubting that the LAN is configured correctly because ntpq shows that the clocks are not being set as accurately as they should be and, if I understand the output correctly, it is telling me that the ntp serve appliance is not on the local LAN, but it is.
Using tcpdump from hpnotebook I see traffic that I don't understand.
sudo /usr/sbin/tcpdump | grep nts
14:16:05.467044 ARP, Request who-has nts tell hpnotebook, length 28
14:16:05.467214 ARP, Reply nts is-at 00:20:4a:bd:af:8a (oui Unknown), length 46
14:17:09.462100 IP hpnotebook.ntp > nts.ntp: NTPv4, Client, length 48
14:17:09.501020 IP nts.ntp > hpnotebook.ntp: NTPv4, Server, length 48
14:17:14.475039 ARP, Request who-has nts tell hpnotebook, length 28
14:17:14.475255 ARP, Reply nts is-at 00:20:4a:bd:af:8a (oui Unknown), length 46
14:17:23.664651 ARP, Request who-has maroon tell nts, length 46
14:17:27.107981 ARP, Request who-has nts tell nts, length 46
14:18:15.462146 IP hpnotebook.ntp > nts.ntp: NTPv4, Client, length 48
14:18:15.501096 IP nts.ntp > hpnotebook.ntp: NTPv4, Server, length 48
It looks to me as if hpnotebook and maroon are continually asking what the MAC address of nts (the time server) is. Orange is running but it is not asking hpnotebook.
Shouldn't the mac address of nts be in a table somewhere as part of the LAN setup?
I'm still attempting to learn LINUX and Ubuntu. I've been searching for answers but have not yet found them.