Re: Multicast DNS & the ".local" domain

[Felipe Alfaro Solana <felipe_alfaro linuxmail org>]

On Nov 12, 2004, at 16:54, Kyrre Ness Sjobak wrote:

> fre, 12.11.2004 kl. 00.44 skrev Felipe Alfaro Solana:
> > On Nov 11, 2004, at 20:09, Kyrre Ness Sjobak wrote:
> >
> > > tor, 11.11.2004 kl. 18.54 skrev Felipe Alfaro Solana:
> > > > Short question: Does Fedora Core 3 support multicast DNS name
> > > > resolution for the ".local" domain?
> > > >
> > > > Long: I can resolv my Linux hostname from my Mac OS X computer, but 
> > > > my
> > > > Linux box can't resolve my Mac OS X hostname.
> > > >
> > > > Looking at the network traffic, Mac OS X name queries for the 
> > > > ".local"
> > > > domain do send mDNS traffic to the multicast mDNS address. Linux
> > > > queries for the ".local" domain go against my ISP DNS server.
> > >
> > > So that is what "mDNS" stands for. What is it? Where can i find
> > > documentation? Simple, easy-to-understand explanations? Does it mean
> > > that i can name my computer "kyrre.local" and it will automatically 
> > > be
> > > discovered and resolved on the LAN?
> >
> > mDNS is a piece of Apple´s Rendezvous technology. There others are
> > automatic link-local IPv4 address allocation and service discovery.
> > Fedora Core 3 already has support for the multicast DNS responder part
> > of Rendezvous, in form of the ¨howl¨package (see
> > http://www.porchdogsoft.com/products/howl).
> >
> > Also, take a look at http://developer.apple.com/macosx/rendezvous
> >
> > The problem I'm having is that Linux mDNSResponder service works 
> > pretty
> > well: when a Mac OS X computer asks mDNSResponder, it does. What I'm
> > unable to achieve is just the opposite: make glibc's resolver use
> > multicast DNS to resolve queries for the ".local" domain. It seems,
> > however, that both SUSE and Gentoo have patches to make this work, and
> > I wanted to know why Fedora does not.
>
> So in short - those who connect a mac to a network containing a FC3
> print-server but no DNS, does now not have to fiddle with hosts? It
> should JustWork(tm)?

Yes, but the mDNSResponder daemon must be running, and it's recommended 
that you use a ".local" domain.

You don't need to publish any IPP (the Internet Printing Protocol) into 
/etc/howl/mDNSResponder.conf, since both Fedora and Mac OS X use CUPS. 
CUPS does allow for on-the-fly printer publishing, that is, whenever 
Fedora bring CUPS up, it will advertise the printers it has configured, 
and the Mac OS X will use that information to build a list of available 
printers.

If you don't want CUPS to broadcast information, you can statically 
publish an IPP record into Howl so the printer is also available 
automatically via Rendezvous.