How to reach a host in the same network by hostname?
Your /etc/nsswitch.conf should already have this for mDNS (avahi):
hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
Just install avahi-daemon
on the machines you want talking to eachother, and you should be set to use HOSTNAME.local like this:
ssh yourmachine.local
An alternative is to add an entry in your /etc/hosts
file:
gksudo gedit /etc/hosts
An entry takes the form 123.123.123.123 host.domain
or just 123.123.123.123 host
.
If you do that, you can now for example ssh host
and it will connect to 123.123.123.123