Multicast DNS & the ".local" domain

[Kyrre Ness Sjobak]

fre, 12.11.2004 kl. 20.56 skrev 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.
> 

I know, but if the mac (or linux box) are unable to lookup the DNS name
of the CUPS server, it fails. Or worse - if the CUPS server has hostname
"localhost"... Ever tried that? It pretty much makes cups on the client
go into an infinite loop, eating disk space on its way...

Had some other funny experiences with CUPS and mac as well - it seems
like the mac's cups implementation tries to "double-run" some driver -
resulting in 1 word of text becomes 15 pages of rubbish... And all the
printers are named "Created by redhat-config-printer" (somebody forgot
to change that string?) :P

> 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.