zeroconf

[Sam Tygier]

thanks i think i am beginning to understand how the system works. theres a bit that converts names to ip address, nss-mdns, and the bit that advertises services, mdnsresponder.
nss is the gnu system for network information, such as dns lookup, and the nss-mdns is a plugin so that it can do the zeroconf lookup (eg flute.local -> 192.168.1.103).

i have played around a bit and followed instructions on http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/nss-mdns/. both machines now have nss-mdns and mdnsresponder and howl-utils. i can 'ping titania.local' from flute, but cant 'ping flute.local' from titania.

could this be an architecture problem? (flute is x86, titania is ppc32)

thanks 

sam

ps

zeroconf/howl is an item on the hoary goals page
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/HoaryGoals/view?searchterm=zeroconf
but it say that it needs further discussion.

i think it would be great for hoary to be able to do 'ssh flute.local' out of the box it would save the bother of using static network settings if you want to talk to the rest of the network.



Sebastian Müsch wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Sam Tygier wrote:
> 
>>i have a powerbook(ti, G4 1ghz, 15", ati) and a via epia MII both run fairly
>>uptodate hoary. they are on a wireless network using dhcp on a linksys router.
>>i'd can ssh from the powerbook to the epia and run rhythmbox so that the
>>powerbook is like a big remote control (or the epia is like a big airport
>>express). the trouble is i need to know the ip address of the epia. i have
>>used macos x, and it seems to use zeroconf or rendezvous as they (used to)
>>call it, to let you give each computer a hostname (titania and flute in this
>>case) and use titania.local or flute.local as domain names that expand to the
>>dynamic ip address. i have installed mdnsresponder (this seems to be something
>>to do with it) as on both machines, but still can even ping flute.local.
> 
> 
>>what am i doing wrong/ missing out?
> 
> 
> Understanding what you are doing? You just installed a server which answers
> to a broadcast request from a client like this:
> 
> Question from mdns-client: "Is there somebody out there?"
> Answer from the mdnsresponder: "I am here, and I've got the following
> services for you."
> 
> So you still need the client who's asking the responder and not the dns ;-)
> 
> 
>>is this even possible
> 
> 
> There is a plugin for the gnu name service switch ...
> 
> http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/nss-mdns/
> 
> ...  which should be easy to use. But be aware, that maybe not all programs
> make use of nss.
> 
> cu
> Sebastian 
>