If you haven’t built a local area network lately, you may have forgotten just how painful a project it can be. But what if your users could just plug in, power on, and connect, building their own ad-hoc network? Zeroconf, the basis of Apple’s Rendezvous product and an emerging networking standard, puts the play back into ‘plug-and-play.’ Here’s how Zeroconf works.
If you haven’t had to configure a local area network (LAN) recently, you’ve probably forgotten what a pain it is. While most people tend to take their LAN for granted once their computer is online, those responsible for installing and configuring hosts often wonder whether all the trouble is really worth it. Because LANs require you to assign IP addresses, set up and configure DNS, and modify applications to use the services of other machines, it’s no wonder that many small office users simply give up on building a LAN and transfer data between computers using two old standbys, the floppy disk and a good pair of sneakers.
Fortunately, there are a handful of new protocols on the rise that promise to help end-users and IT managers alike get beyond typical network configuration woes. Collectively dubbed, “Zeroconf,” short for “zero configuration networking,” these protocols allow networked devices to select their own IP address, resolve their own hostnames, and advertise their own services for others to use — all without any human intervention. With Zeroconf, just plug a new device into the network and it’s instantly able to share (consume and provide) services with all other connected devices.
Sound good? Yes! But there’s just one problem: no one can seem to agree on exactly what group of protocols to use.
From Concept to Protocols
Zeroconf began in 1997 when a group of network programmers, students, and other Macintosh enthusiasts on the net-thinkers mailing list started discussing…
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