Re: [gnome-network]Re: network://

[Josh Krueger <peacelovelinux comcast net>]

First post....weeeee.
I remember someone posted a comment about UPnP, and no-one said
anything. so im just commenting

On Thu, 2003-09-11 at 19:04, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-09-11 at 18:27, Rodrigo Moya wrote:
> > On Thu, 2003-09-11 at 18:35 -0400, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2003-09-11 at 18:14, Rodrigo Moya wrote:
> > > > Hi
> > > > 
> > > > We are planning, in gnome-network, to do some Zeroconf (aka RendezVous)
> > > > support. One of the things we are thinking is to have some special
> > > > folders in network:// that allow the user to view the autodetected
> > > > services for different protocols.
> > > 
> > > Rock!
> > > 
> > > Question: are you planning on writing custom ZC code for GNOME, or using
> > > an existing library (or set of libraries) ? 
> > >
> > yes, the plan is to provide a set of classes in a libgnetwork library,
> > so that other GNOME apps can use it. We are right now waiting on
> > approval from gmdns author to integrate it in our libgnetwork. (gmdns is
> > in GNOME CVS).
> 
> *rushes off to look at gmdns*
> 
> The docs are rather lacking, and a quick (i.e., < 5 minutes) perusal of
> the code didn't answer: is this only a resolver?  It looks as tho it has
> some service registration code, but I'm not quite sure what it's doing
> (I'm not too familiar with the glib api, sadly).
> 
> If it is a server, then does this mean that if a GNOME app using this
> library is advertising a service, no non-GNOME app can also run an MDNS
> advertised service?  I would have thought the system would need a single
> centralized MDNS daemon for responding, with a "standardized" API.  I'm
> not all that up-to-date on multicast networking, tho.  (That being a
> reason I haven't yet got much past the research phase.  ;-)
> 
> 
> > >  Are we talking SLP, MDNS,
> > > etc?
> > >
> > first, mdns, since we've got an implementation, which works. Then, SLP,
> > etc, yeah
> 
> Righty.  I'll admit to not having bothered to research this, but is UPnP
> support possible?  Or even needed?  Assuming a largely MS based network,
> neither MDNS nor SLP may be of much help.
> 
Well, UPnP is pointed at sharing hardware devices across a network.
Devices like printers, scanners, etc.. But it could be used to share
services, but not what were talking about as far as the realm of sharing
goes. Theres a "media server and media renderer" for UPnP thats out
there. But then again, if there could be a sort of services server, that
says what simple services are running, then in fact UPnP is possible.
That also means that there has to be a good deal of windows coding, and
I'm not sure if theres too many people that would be comfortable with
it. 

You could also have a program sitting in the background in windows, that
makes a share w/ files that list what services are running, such as
HTTP, FTP, and on the client end of Gnome, have a simple app that would
interperet those files, and use the appropriate program to access those
said services. Just a thought.


> > 
> > >   What kind of integration, if any, with system installed MDNS (if
> > > using MDNS) responders and resolvers is planned?
> > > 
> > we're not clear yet on all the issue, so any suggestion would be really
> > helpful. What do you have in mind?
> 
> My plans where mostly along the lines of taking tmdns or another such
> server, finishing it off, and doing some good, in-depth documenting of
> the APIs.  Then just basically evangelize enough to get all the major
> distros to pick it up, and common server/user apps to use the service.
> 
> If the gmdns approach works, tho, I'm all for it.  Especially if the
> code is usable, or easily modified to be usable, outside of GNOME. 
> (i.e., get apache, cups, and so on to register services.)
> 
> 
> > 
> > cheers