I have a script on my XP machine that needs to contact my OSX machine by ip address. The OSX machine uses DHCP, and the ip address changes daily. However, it has a static computer name and netbios name (the same) that I assume could be resolved to the ip address somehow for the script to use.
So I'm looking (guessing) for command(s) that might reveal the ip address of the OSX machine from the XP machine using (at most) the OSX static computer name.
What I've tried:
ping my_osx_comp_name
-> not found
ping my_osx_comp_name.local
-> not found
arp -a
shows an ip address for the OSX machine but not a name.
If I assume for the moment that I had the current dynamic ip address (192.168.235.18) but not the name (for the sake of diagnosing),
tracert 192.168.235.18
shows a single hop but no name resolution.
ping -a 192.168.235.18
pings successfully but shows no name
nbtstat -A 192.168.235.18
-> host not found
I did make sure that they are in the same workgroup "WORKGROUP". They are also on the same LAN with the same default gateway and subnet mask.
What else can I do or might I have wrong? Do I need a WINS server?
Like I said, I'm guessing at solutions. I'm not that familiar with NETBIOS, WINS, etc.