Wireless Hacks

Rendezvous Service Advertisements in Linux

Let your users know what services are available on your network, even if you aren’t running OS X.

Since I’m running a node on SeattleWireless (as well as a streaming jukebox that I’m developing), I’d like to let people know what local services are available. Sure, most visitors just jump straight to their favorite web site or check their email (or their popularity) when they hit my node, but perhaps they’d like to enjoy some local content at a whopping 11 Mbps?

This is one reason why I love multicast DNS service (http://www.multicastdns.org/) advertisements (and Rendezvous, in particular). My Linux Jukebox and Wiki are now announcing themselves like an old-time barker at the county fair. Wireless users at the cafe across the street (or anywhere within a block or so) can find my local services any time just by looking at available Rendezvous sites (Figure 3-23). As if that weren’t enough, my streamer is even advertising itself as a daap stream, so iTunes 4 users can see that it’s available from inside iTunes.

Figure 3-23. Users can easily find advertised services using a Rendezvous-enabled browser.

To advertise Rendezvous services, you need a multicast DNS advertiser. I think Apple’s own Posix implementation is more than adequate. (Download it after a free registration on Apple’s site at http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/rendezvous/source/Rendezvous.tar.gz ...