name resolution

[Liam Proven]

I've picked this old message because it seems to me to be where Xen
started going _way_ off-base in their replies.

On 24 November 2017 at 18:20, Xen <list at xenhideout.nl> wrote:
> Tom H schreef op 24-11-2017 10:03:
>>
>> It started using Rendezvous for zero config networking in OS X 10.2,
>> renamed it Bonjour in OS X 10.5, and has been using it ever since.
>
>
> Where does that say "decide for the rest of the world"?

It doesn't. Stop the paranoid ranting.

Apple is an early adopter of tech standards, and indeed, sometimes it
sets them. All 3D composited desktops in the world today use a model
Apple designed. Apple brough the ``sudo'' command to mainstream Unix,
copied 4y later or so by Ubuntu.

Apple was the first company with a mass-market computer with only USB,
and propelled USB onto the world stage. It also was a major promoter
of Firewire and named it -- Sony called it the less inspiring i.Link
and officially it's IEEE1394.

Apple makes easy-to-use computers. With AppleTalk, you plugged them in
and it just worked. With TCP/IP, this wasn't possible. TCP/IP needs a
unique address for every machine, a shared subnet mask, and some form
of name resolution service. It can't ask every machine what its name
is, as it doesn't know what other machines are out there. It can't ask
the server or router because it hasn't got one.

So in 2000, two Bills, Manning and Woodcock, defined a name service
that would work for serverless networks -- multicast DNS.

http://www.watersprings.org/pub/id/draft-manning-dnsext-mdns-00.txt

Apple adopted this in 2002 with OS X 10.2, and called it Rendezvous.
Someone else had registered this name so sticking with the French
theme, it was renamed Bonjour.

It is _needed_. Before this, different machines with self-assigned
network addresses could not find each other by name.

It's not an Apple tech. It's an RFC, the same way all of the
Internet's protocols are determined. It's just an Apple implementation
of an existing proposal.

Windows includes one. Android includes one. Linux includes one.

> If I use something in my personal life, do I also decide for the rest of the
> world?

If you invent your own personal language, you won't be able to talk to
anyone. But nobody's stopping you.

>> Lennart re-implemented Bonjour, I've forgotten when, as a gpl-licensed
>> technology for use in Linux and BSD.
>
> You're still not saying anything relevant.
>
> We already knew that.

You are certainly acting like you don't.

It's an open standard. Apple adopted it and made it important before
anyone else. The rest of the world followed. There's no need for 2 of
them.

>>> So by all extents and purposes, you should put mDNS AFTER DNS, unless of
>>> course

That's ludicrous. The machine should try to find a DNS server, ask it,
wasting time and traffic, and *then* ask locally? That'a absurd.

>> In your use-case, perhaps.
>>
>> In the general use-case, all distributions have chosen the logical
>> choice of querying mdns before dns.

Exactly.

> A choice is not a use case.

It is the sensible and pragmatic choice. The other way round would be
much slower and generate tons of spurious redundant and unnecessary
traffic. It _must_ be this way.

> What is the general use case that mandates that choice, and what makes it
> logical?

I just explained that.

> I told you how it's not logical. Refute it please.

Did that too.

> Or just don't say anything.

Me? Nah. :-D

> Calling it logical doesn't make it logical.

It is logical. If everyone else thinks so and you don't, then maybe
you don't know what logical means, or don't understand the logic.

You are wrong on this one.

>>> YOU WANT TO EXTINGUISH THE USE OF THE LOCAL DOMAIN BY FORCIBLE MEASURES.
>>>
>>> Which they are doing.
>>>
>>> Not practical necessity.
>>>
>>> Politics.

Paranoid nonsense.

> This always used to be the case.
>
> It was called "netbios".
>
> Netbios wasn't forced on anyone and didn't use DNS.

NetBIOS needs name resolution over TCP/IP v4 and doesn't work at all
on IPv6. Originally it used a WINS server, then later, MS embraced &
extended DNS in its normal unpleasant way. If no name server is
available, it sends broadcast requests, which is bandwidth-wasteful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBIOS_over_TCP/IP

> And all the same, if "dns" precedes that, the above would still hold true in
> mDNS.

Wrong. I don't think you know networking as well as you think you do.

> Linux does not have a new filesharing system other than Samba/CIFS.

It supported NFS before Samba. It also does sshfs and multiple other
protocols including 9P.

> There is nothing new here.
>
> This existed in freaking Windows 95.

Windows 95 _did not install TCP/IP by default_.

>From Wednesday:

https://twitter.com/Foone/status/933045088447430656

You really do not understand this subject but you are arguing with
people who do. And, I might point out, were implementing it in
1993-1994 on systems carrying US$600 million in trades per day.

Don't try to tell me my business unless you know it better than I do,
there's a good chap.

> That's the meaning of "zero conf", you know, that you could go to Network
> and see all the computers in the workgroup, which was always the same.

Go on then. Explain how this worked over NetBEUI and IPX/SPX and what
the important differences were. Tell us how you'd configure such a
system removing those protocols and replacing both with TCP/IP. Don't
forget that it was an optional extra in Windows for Workgroups so you
should mention its special status and explain what implementations
were available and the main considerations in choosing one of them.

I was doing this for a living when I was half the age I am now.

Were you?

I'm guessing not, because nothing you've said implies you know how to do it.

> I went to LAN parties and saw dozens upon dozens of computers I could
> access.
>
> Zero configuration you know, in case you need the definition of that.

It means _you_ did zero configuration. Someone  else did it for you.

Now, if you were arguing that TCP/IP was more difficult than NetBEUI,
I'd agree. But, as I'm sure a network expert such as yourself knows
(!), NetBEUI is not routable, so you could not build the Internet with
it.

IPX/SPX is, but it can't readily be subnetted.

And those, and alternatives such as DECnet, HP DLC, or
AppleTalk/EtherTalk -- all of which I have worked with, yes -- are all
proprietary.

There was only one FOSS protocol suite. We're talking over it now.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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