[IIAB] Request for mDNS name resolution from Internet-in-a-Box project

[Paul Fox]

braddock wrote:
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 > Dear OLPC Devel folks,
 > Is it possible to enable mDNS name resolution in future builds of OLPC OS?
 > 
 > Fedora and most Linux distros (not to mention Macs) support mDNS out
 > of the box, yet for some reason it is turned off in OLPC OS.  I
 > believe all that is required is the addition of the nss-mdns package
 > to the OLPC OS build.

if it's that simple, can your deployments simply do that installation
with yum?  or is there something else missing, either from the laptop,
or from my understanding?

paul

 > 
 > Enabling mDNS allows us to add an Internet-in-a-Box network appliance
 > to an XO deployment network with zero configuration.  The user just
 > plugs our device into their network and browser queries for
 > http://know.local simply resolve.
 > 
 > This works on Mac and most flavors of Linux, and for Windows we
 > provide an NMB name at http://know.
 > 
 > But ironically the XO seems to lack any mechanism for de-centralized
 > local resource discovery.
 > 
 > Unfortunately, since OLPC OS does not resolve mDNS names we are
 > finding deployments to XO schools are much, much harder.
 > 
 > We are, for example, right now in the middle of a deployment to a
 > large school with XOs in Pakistan.  Instead of just plugging in the
 > Internet-in-a-Box device, the people on-site need to reconfigure DHCPd
 > on their CentOS XS School Server to supply a static IP to our
 > appliance's MAC address, then use the IP address from the XO's
 > browser.  Not ideal, and I'm not sure they will succeed.
 > 
 > A successful deployment of Internet-in-a-Box to a Windows-based school
 > in Sierra Leone, on the other hand, was trivial.
 > 
 > Thanks,
 > Braddock Gaskill
 > Founder, Internet-in-a-Box Project
 > http://internet-in-a-box.org
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=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf at laptop.org