How to make NoMachine update target computer IPs?

[blandy]

I have computers on a home network that I NoMachine into. When the computers sleep and wake, or when a new device appears on the network, they get new IPs. NoMachine doesn’t seem to update the IP for the machine, so it fails to connect when I first try. I have to then open the NoMachine server on the target computer, find the IP (or generally, find the local IP of the machine), and re-enter it into NoMachine for that target computer.

How do I remove this manual process (other than giving my computers static IPs on my home network, which isn’t an option for me)?

[kroy]

Hi

You don’t have to change IP manually. It will change automatically after few seconds. Problem is that it looks that you already entered IP manually and it’s saved permanently in connection file now. You can remove that change with editing .nxs (probably last file in the: ~/.nx/cache/) on client side. Find line with key “Server host” and delete IP value like here:

<option key=”Server host” value=”” />

[blandy]

thank you. Where does that file live on windows?

[kroy]

Also in the home directory – C:\Users\your_username\.nx

[blandy]

Hi kroy, there is no folder like that on my machine (Windows 7) – there is a C:\Users\nx directory, but none of the sub directories have a cache folder

[kroy]

What is your username for the computer you are accessing? This “username” is what you should write here: C:\Users\HERE\.nx\cache

Folder “.nx” is hidden, you can set File browser to show hidden items or just paste C:\Users\PASTE-HERE-USERNAME\.nx\cache path in navigation bar in the File browser.

[blandy]

Ah ok, I was thrown off because some dot folders were showing up, but not the .nx one, I’ve removed the cached XML lines now.

So now NoMachine has found the computer’s public IP automatically, but not the local one. So I had to go in and edit it manually again. How do I get NoMachine to use the local IP for discovery?

[Britgirl]

When a NoMachine server runs on a machine, it makes a list of network interfaces, and it collects all the information (hostname, list of IPs, ports on which it is listening) and sends it on the LAN where NoMachine clients (on the same LAN) receive this info. This info is used to create an mDNS item in the list. The server cannot know in advance if those IPs are the right ones to use or not. So, if the first of the IPs is “wrong”, the client will fail to connect. What you can do is go in to the Player’s Configuration panel of the connection and check if there are multiple entries in the Host field. An example of what you could see is attached:

Select another item from the list for the connection and then connect.

Attachments:

1. 

   nomachine-IP-address-edit-connection.png
   

[blandy]

@Britgirl are those mac addresses? Can I force NoMachine to always find a machine by matching mac address, so it will always find the right IP for that machine?

[Britgirl]

Maybe you could raise the DHCP lease time, so machines added to the network will keep the same IP for longer time? That way you won’t need to change it often in the connection settings.

 

are those mac addresses?

no, those are server UUID’s generated when NoMachine is installed

Edit: The release of NoMachine Network will resolve the question of now knowing the IP address of your remote computer (especially in the case of dynamic IP addresses).

https://www.nomachine.com/network

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