Zeroconfig and Multicast DNS

[Fredrik Lindberg]

Pat Lashley wrote:
>> In short, zeroconfig allows a host to automatically negotiate
>> a collision free ip-address with other hosts on the network in the
>> absence of a DHCP-server. It's suitable for small ad-hoc networks,
>> or in embedded solutions.
> 
> Actually, that is IPv4 Link Local Addressing. Zeroconfig includes that, 
> Multicast DNS, Service Discovery and anything else that removes the need 
> for manual configuration.

Yeah, I actually know that. It's just that I've developed a bad habit of
calling it zeroconfig in the absence of a short name, calling it
"ipv4 link local addressing" every time tends to get a bit tedious.
But I should not have done that in my previous mail, my apologies.

> 
> I'm very glad to hear that somebody is working on IPv4 Link Local for 
> FreeBSD.
> 
>> Multicast DNS is DNS without a server, you can think of it as mixing
>> ...
> 
> Doesn't the net/mDNSResponder port handle both mDNS and (m)DNS-based 
> service discovery? Is it missing some functionality that can't be easily 
> handled by a wrapper?  (E.g. An nss_mdns that uses their libdns_sd.so)
> 

I didn't know there was a port of Apples daemon and I'm sure it
works just fine. The only thing that might be an issue is licensing
terms, at least in embedded solutions. My code is under a BSD license.
I'll continue to hack on my responder anyway, as it's not that
far from completion.

The service discovery part is just a set of records in the responder
which it responds to, a service discovery client/agent is needed to
find announced records.

Fredrik Lindberg