Multicast DNS & the ".local" domain

[Felipe Alfaro Solana]

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.